Jocko Podcast #9: “The Motivation” – General Patton, Jiu Jitsu for Streets, Home Gyms, Hero Worship

[0:00:00] - "War as I Knew it" - General George S. Patton INTERNET QUESTIONS [1:15:30] 1:15:30 - Is Jiu Jitsu practical for street defense, knives, multiple attackers, etc? Extension video From Tim Ferriss interview (Facebook) 1:27:36 - Leading UP the chain of command in an organization who's tradition is para-military. 1:33:58 - Essential equipment for a home gym. 1:46:40 - Worrying about hero-worship. 2:05:14 - What motivates Jocko? Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Jocko Willink?

  This is Jocko Podcast Number Nine with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink.

• 0:11Jocko Willink?

  Perhaps I stabbed our Savior in his sacred helpless side, yet I've called his name in blessing when in after times I died. Through the travail of the ages, midst the pomp and toil of war, have I fought and strove and perished countless times upon this star.

• 0:33Jocko Willink?

  I have sinned and I have suffered, played the hero and the knave, fought for belly, shame, or country, and for each have found a grave.

• 0:44Jocko Willink?

  So as through a glass and darkly, the age-long strife I see, where I fought in many guises, many names, but always me.

• 0:56Jocko Willink?

  So forever in the future shall I battle as of your, dying to be born a fighter, but to die again once more.

• 1:09Jocko Willink?

  And that is a poem by General George S. Patton.

• 1:18Jocko Willink?

  And I've been thinking about the podcast and about the direction and about the things and about what we talk about and what I talk about and I was actually have been looking for a for a non-military book, for a book that talks about the same kind of things that I think about, but it's not about war, because there's a very small population that are engaged in war, in real war. So I've been looking for a book and I've got a bunch of books, books that I enjoy and books that I like and I've been looking for a good book that is not a war book.

• 2:01Jocko Willink?

  And I had some close ones and maybe they'll make the cut.

• 2:07Jocko Willink?

  But but but we're not there yet.

• 2:10Jocko Willink?

  Because.

• 2:14Jocko Willink?

  Because quite simply, war is at another level. It's not better, and it's not a good thing. And I don't worship war, but it is, in fact, the ultimate human struggle.

• 2:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:33Jocko Willink?

  And as Judge Holden,

• 2:37Jocko Willink?

  in the book Blood Meridian puts it,

• 2:44Jocko Willink?

  "This is the nature of war, whose stake is at once the game and the authority and the justification.

• 2:55Jocko Willink?

  Seen so, war is the truest form of divination. It is the testing of one's will and the will of another within that larger will which because it binds them is therefore forced to select.

• 3:12Jocko Willink?

  War is the ultimate game because war is at last a forcing of the unity of existence. War is God."

• 3:25Jocko Willink?

  Now, I'm gonna tell you, I'm not gonna go into Blood Meridian tonight. Blood Meridian, I've talked about it on a couple of occasions, and one day, we will. And it's probably gonna take multiple shows, and it's gonna take research, but that is a heavy, heavy book that is thick with content and meaning and words that are powerful.

• 3:53Jocko Willink?

  And that's a tiny slice of Blood Meridian. And we will get to it at some point. And I actually get, you know, people are always like, hey, do Blood Meridian, do Blood Meridian, because there's a lot of people that take a lot of information, a lot of meaning from that book.

• 4:11Jocko Willink?

  But I'm not ready yet. I'm not, you know, that's gonna take... And it's the same thing with Shakespeare. People are like, hey, when are you gonna do The Bard?

• 4:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 4:21Jocko Willink?

  And it's the same thing. I, I wanna be fully prepared and I'm either gonna do, maybe I won't be fully prepared to do the whole thing, but maybe we'll take chunks

• 4:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:32Jocko Willink?

  of Blood Meridian, or some chunks of Shakespeare, and start to try and digest them, because those are big meals. Now...

• 4:42Jocko Willink?

  That's why, you know, that's why we're not talking about a business book tonight. That's why we're not talking about a business leader. That's why we're not talking about a sports leader. That's why we're not talking about a public figure that had to struggle through whatever to get to the top of the mountain that they were climbing. Or a mountain climber. We're not talking about that. We're talking about war. And

• 5:11Jocko Willink?

  like I said, war is not God like Judge Holden describes it in Blood Meridian, but it certainly is a powerful force and it certainly is the ultimate struggle. The ultimate struggle for life against other humans that want to end your life and that's it.

• 5:30Jocko Willink?

  Which brings us to Patton. And that poem, you know, obviously in Patton's mind, he was a warrior before. Over and over again.

• 5:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, he thought he was reincarnated, right?

• 5:45Jocko Willink?

  Reincarnated.

• 5:45Speaker 01

  Like, he's a soldier for Caesar.

• 5:48Jocko Willink?

  Soldier for hundreds and thousands of years.

• 5:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 5:52Jocko Willink?

  And

• 5:55Jocko Willink?

  before I do jump into Patton, I do the tankers. The tankers of the world, the US military. We worked with the 11AD, the first brigade, first armored division in Ramadi, Iraq in 2006, the Ready First. And the tanks. The 68-ton Abrams main battle tank with a giant turbine engine grinding the street apart as they come to support and rescue and save.

• 6:37Jocko Willink?

  The SEALs, which they did over and over again. And there was no

• 6:44Jocko Willink?

  better sound in the world than those tanks firing up their engines and putting main gun rounds into buildings to kill bad guys and protect American troops. And we heard a lot about Patton while we were working with the 1180 because the guy is the kind of the foremost tanker.

• 7:10Jocko Willink?

  And even me, I grew up with Patton. Because the George C. Scott movie was released when I was a kid and to this day, I remember watching that for the first time and being, you know,

• 7:26Jocko Willink?

  awestruck by Patton. And when you stick your hand into a bunch of goo that a moment ago was your best friend's face,

• 7:36Jocko Willink?

  then you'll know what to do.

• 7:39Jocko Willink?

  And that's all. And so that was just a that's how I grew up. I mean, I grew up, I watched that movie so many times, I can't even remember.

• 7:48Speaker 01

  Do you still watch it?

• 7:50Jocko Willink?

  We watched it in Ramadi. We watched it in Ramadi.

• 7:53Speaker 01

  What, just to get fired up?

• 7:54Jocko Willink?

  Just to get fired up.

• 7:57Jocko Willink?

  And and it is a great movie. But let's talk about the real Patton, who actually in many ways was more colorful and more charismatic and really larger in life, in real life, than George C. Scott in the movie could make him out to be.

• 8:16Speaker 01

  I read that

• 8:19Speaker 01

  he would, when he'd talk and stuff, he'd swear a lot, he'd use a lot of profanity, but he, he did that on purpose. He did it like to, to, to send a message or to get his guys fired up, but in regular conversation, he didn't really swear.

• 8:31Jocko Willink?

  He's a, he's a mysterious guy with a lot of different facets to him. So I'm gonna kick this off. So we're going to the book, George S. Patton,

• 8:45Jocko Willink?

  War As I Knew It.

• 8:48Jocko Willink?

  And interestingly, this book was given to me by Leif, Leif Babin, who wrote Extreme Ownership with me and who served with me in Ramadi and is one of my brothers. So.

• 9:04Jocko Willink?

  General Order Number Eighteen.

• 9:08Jocko Willink?

  This is from Patton to his troops. Soldiers of the Seventh Army.

• 9:14Jocko Willink?

  Born at sea, baptized in blood and crowned with victory. In the course of thirty-eight days of incessant battle and unceasing labor, you have added a glorious chapter to the history of war. Pitted against the best Germans and Italians could offer, you have been unfailingly successful. The rapidity of your dash, which culminated in the capture of Palermo, was equaled by the dogged tenacity with which you stormed Trignia and captured Messina. Every man in the Army deserves equal credit. The enduring valor of the infantry and the impetuous ferocity of the tanks were matched by the tireless clamor of our destroying guns.

• 9:57Jocko Willink?

  The engineers performed prodigies in the construction and maintenance of impossible roads over impassable country. The services of maintenance and supply performed a miracle. The Signal Corps laid over ten thousand miles of wire and the medical department evacuated and cared for our sick and wounded. On all occasions, the Navy has given generous and gallant support. Throughout the operation, our air has kept the sky clear and tirelessly supported the operation of the ground troops. As a result of this combined effort, you have killed or captured one hundred and thirteen thousand, three hundred and fifty enemy troops. You've destroyed two hundred and sixty-five of his tanks, two thousand, three hundred and twenty-four vehicles,

• 10:40Jocko Willink?

  and one thousand, one hundred and sixty-two large guns. And in addition, you have collected a mass of military booty running into the hundreds of tons. But your victory has a significance be above and beyond its physical aspect. You have destroyed the prestige of the enemy. The President of the United States, the Secretary of War, the Chief of Staff, General Eisenhower, General Alexander, General Montgomery, have all congratulated you. Your fame shall never die. G.S. Patton, Jr., Lieutenant General, U.S. Army, commanding.

• 11:17Jocko Willink?

  So you were talking about getting fired up and what he would do to get people fired up?

• 11:21Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 11:22Jocko Willink?

  There you have it.

• 11:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 11:24Jocko Willink?

  Obviously, a very skilled writer with great command of the language. Can you even imagine what you'd feel like hearing that address to you and your people, you and your troops, you and your brothers?

• 11:38Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 11:43Jocko Willink?

  A little bit about Patton. Few military figures in history have laid siege to the public imagination more relentlessly than George S. Patton Jr. Half a century after his exploits in North Africa, on Sicily, and across occupied Europe, his name still evokes the dash and breva cavalry charge. He is widely considered the best field commander in the American Army of World War II, and he is certainly one of the most feared by the Germans, who paid him the compliment before Normandy of massing defenses against a nonexistent Army Patton group.

• 12:21Jocko Willink?

  By VE Day in 1945, he commanded eighteen divisions and 540,000 soldiers, a force comparable to the size of the American military at its peak in Vietnam. The New York Times declared in his obituary, "History has reached out and embraced General George Patton. His place is secure." He was not a man of peace.

• 12:51Jocko Willink?

  A man of peace he was not, but his legacy clearly transcends his military conquests. He was complex and contradictory, larger than life, and yet all too human. It is the Patton paradox that transfixes. And this is something that we've talked about before on this podcast, and it's something that I talk about all the time, and that is, people's strengths can be their weaknesses. And you get a guy like Patton who's hyper-aggressive, and that actually ends up being a negative in some cases, even though it's extremely positive in others. Back to the book. A warlord fighting in the name of democracy. He was also an unrepentant aristocratic snob.

• 13:34Jocko Willink?

  So, this is a guy that, and they talk about this some more, but a guy that was like proud of soldiers. Almost to a fault. He revered soldiers, and yet he's an aristocrat.

• 13:48Jocko Willink?

  His devotion to common soldiers bordered on reverence. Yet his slapping of two enlisted men nearly caused him to sit out the war in disgrace, and we'll get into that a little bit more.

• 14:02Jocko Willink?

  He exuded confidence and relentless certitude. In truth, he was insecure and often confused. He was well-read, fluent in French, and as a wealthy, as a wealthy child of privilege and the husband of an heiress at home in society's most fashionable salons.

• 14:25Jocko Willink?

  He could also be crude, rude, and plain foolish. His humility seemed heartfelt, yet he acknowledged an overdeveloped personal ambition. And once confessed, "I don't like the dirt at all, except as a means to fame."

• 14:45Jocko Willink?

  So, like I said, this guy is a complex guy. This isn't a salt of the earth David Hackworth guy that you never got that from him. You've never got that from, like, a guy like Hackworth.

• 14:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:56Jocko Willink?

  That he had any sort of quest for glory.

• 14:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:00Jocko Willink?

  He, just the complete opposite. And that's why Patton, for me, is a, is not a pure figure. You know, not that I would really say that I, I can think of any pure figures, but he's definitely a very faulted

• 15:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:14Jocko Willink?

  leader, and which makes it good to learn from. And he had some of me, I mean, obviously, I, I should, here I am. A, a complete idiot loser sitting here calling, uh, you know, General George S. Pat, George S. Patton, saying he's a faulted leader. So, don't get me, don't get me wrong here.

• 15:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:33Jocko Willink?

  The guy was unbelievably, uh, powerful leader, an incredible leader. An incredible tactician and strategist. But, and it is very clear that he had some of those dichotomies that went a little bit too far in one way or the other.

• 15:53Jocko Willink?

  As a warrior, back to the book, as a warrior, his fundamental prescription for waging war involved violent attacks everywhere with everything. Yet he considered the carpet bombing of German cities to be barbaric, useless, and sadistic. So that's, that's a contradiction you don't hear very much about him. And here's how you see him by the higher ups a little bit. Eisenhower, who once referred to Patton as this mentally unbalanced officer, also told George Marshall, Patton is a problem child, but he is great, he is a great fighting leader in pursuit and exploitation.

• 16:36Jocko Willink?

  A division commander described the general as invaluable in war, but a disturbing element in times of peace. And to that Patton was flattered. But perhaps the epitaph you would treasure most came from one of his soldiers before the Allied invasion of France. Here is a man for whom you would go to hell and back. So clearly to his troops, they held him in very high regard. Quote from Patton, "May God have mercy on my enemies, they will need it." That's, that's the kind of thing that, that when he says, people, you know, the frontline

• 17:19Jocko Willink?

  troopers are gonna hear that and say, yes, we are ready to roll. Uh, he also said, "Leadership is a thing that wins battles. I have it, but I'll be damned if I can define it." In Patton's career, we see certain trademarks, a relentless aggression and faith in the offensive, an uncanny instinct for enemy intentions and disposition. Common theme that we talk about all the time, being on offense, being aggressive, and Patton was an absolute, probably, I think he is probably the most aggressive of, of the people that we've talked about and of, pretty much, I think of, of anyone I've ever heard of.

• 18:06Jocko Willink?

  And it goes a little bit negative. And we see too, the creeping arrogance, the hubris, which would cost the American Army so dearly in Vietnam. Summing up the achievements of his troops in crushing the German counterattack of December 1944, Patton with pardonable pride, claims to have moved farther and faster and engaged more divisions in less time than any other army in the history of the United States, possibly in the history of the world. No country can stand against such an army.

• 18:43Jocko Willink?

  This smug pride, the disease of victory, and I love that, that's a, that's a little something we should all remember. The disease of victory. Victory's supposed to be all positive, but guess what? There's something called the disease of victory.

• 19:03Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, this disease of victory would rot the army from within, leading future commanders to underestimate their enemies and overestimate their own battlefield prowess. Tragically, the only antidote to this disease of victory would be the humiliation of defeat.

• 19:27Jocko Willink?

  We see that sometimes in sports.

• 19:30Speaker 01

  A lot.

• 19:31Jocko Willink?

  We see it in sports, we see it in business. Sometimes people need to get humbled.

• 19:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:37Jocko Willink?

  And when they get humbled, they get arrogant from the victories, and then they get humbled and they get back in the game, and they realize what they have to do to win.

• 19:47Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, his passion for military life ran so deep that he considered it as natural for me to be a soldier as to breathe.

• 19:57Jocko Willink?

  War, he claimed, is the only place where a man really lives.

• 20:06Jocko Willink?

  Beyond a keen interest in technological developments of armored vehicles and airplanes, he retained a near fanatical belief in the importance of being mentally and physically ready to fight. Even in war-wary 1920s, he admonished junior officers, "You must school yourself to savagery."

• 20:33Jocko Willink?

  And speaking of savagery, this is the slaps, when he slapped these young enlisted troopers.

• 20:46Jocko Willink?

  The infamous slaps heard round the world. Patton's memoir gives the episode short shrift, but it nearly wrecked his life. In early August while visiting wounded troops on Sicily, the commander cuffed a soldier who had been diagnosed as suffering from battle fatigue. Patton called it cowardice. Further examination revealed the man had malaria and dysentery. A week later, Patton repeated his behavior with another soldier, and this time made motions to draw his pistol, as if to shoot the wretch.

• 21:27Jocko Willink?

  Patton publicly apologized, but remained privately unrepentant. "Had other officers had the courage to do likewise," he wrote, "the shameful use of battle fatigue as an excuse for cowardice would have been infinitely reduced."

• 21:50Jocko Willink?

  So that was a significant incident, that he publicly apologized, but he obviously didn't really mean that. He felt he had done the right thing. But still, there was much glory to be won. Patton's exploit in the Battle of the Bulge, abruptly wheeling his army around and driving 100 miles through the icy Ardennes to hit the Germans in the flank with 17 divisions, remains among the most storied campaigns in modern warfare.

• 22:23Jocko Willink?

  And then after the war, as Europe was now almost an occupied state in many places, and as people talked about Patton being good for war but not being good for peace, and that turned out to be pretty accurate. No longer able to attack, he indeed became bullies. Patton was arrogant, defiant, and erratic as the summer of 1945 passed.

• 23:02Jocko Willink?

  And that's

• 23:05Jocko Willink?

  kind of the intro on Patton. Now

• 23:09Jocko Willink?

  going back now to the beginning of the war.

• 23:15Jocko Willink?

  And

• 23:18Jocko Willink?

  his first, one of his early journal entries. He says, "Have been giving everyone a simplified directive of war. Use steamroller strategy. That is, make up your mind on course and direction of action and stick to it. But in tactics, do not steamroller. Attack weakness. Hold them by the nose and kick them in the pants." This is something that we talk about all the time. It's flanking people. It's not keeping, not going into their strengths and keep attacking their strengths. No, you you attack their strengths to keep them occupied, but then you come around to the flank, you know?

• 24:03Jocko Willink?

  It's in jiu-jitsu, you attack the arm and you get the neck, or you attack the neck and you get the arm. In combat, it's flanking. That's what it is. And he was a master of this and pushed it very, very hard.

• 24:18Jocko Willink?

  Now we can get into

• 24:23Jocko Willink?

  a little bit more of his what he says are his reflections and suggestions. And if, in this book, if you, if you do end up getting this book, I'm basically skipping the war part. The, the, the entire book is about what he did and how he did it. And I'm skipping that. And I've said this before because I like to know about what they did and how they did it, because that is important. But I like to know why they did it, what they were thinking and what principles they were following. And this book beautifully breaks it down. Again, it's written by him.

• 25:04Jocko Willink?

  But it breaks down what he was thinking, why he did take these actions and what his strategies and tactics were.

• 25:14Jocko Willink?

  And this is great because he starts off saying something that's very similar to what Leif and I say in the beginning of our book, which is like, "We didn't invent this stuff." So here's General George S. Patton saying the same thing. "Probably, there is nothing original in what I shall now put down, because war is an ancient subject, and I, an ancient man, have studied and practiced it for over forty years. So what appears to me as original thought may be simply subconscious memories." So, he's saying, "I didn't necessarily think of all this." And Leif and I, in the beginning of our book, say the same thing.

• 25:55Jocko Willink?

  "Concerning the soldier, the soldier is the army. No army is better than its soldiers. The soldier is also a citizen. In fact, the highest obligation and privilege of citizenship is that of bearing arms for one's country. Hence, it is a privilege to be a soldier, a good soldier. To be a good soldier, a man must have discipline, self-respect, pride in his unit and his country, a high sense of duty and obligation to his comrades and to his superiors, and self-confidence born of demonstrated ability."

• 26:37Jocko Willink?

  His number one characteristic was discipline, which should come as no surprise. There has been, and is now, a great deal of talk about discipline, but few people, in or out of the army, know what it is or why it is necessary. No sane man is unafraid in battle, but discipline produces in him a form of vicarious courage, which, with his manhood, makes for victory. Self-respect grows directly from discipline.

• 27:21Jocko Willink?

  Self-confidence, the greatest military virtue, results from the demonstrated ability derived from the acquisition of all the preceding qualities and from the, from exercise in the use of weapons. So self-confidence comes from practice and skill. And that's derived from discipline.

• 27:45Jocko Willink?

  Discipline is clearly a subject we talk about quite a bit. And its importance in the military is,

• 27:55Jocko Willink?

  cannot be overstated. It really can't be. And I would go so far as to tell you that discipline's importance in life cannot be overstated. The root of all good characteristics is the discipline.

• 28:16Jocko Willink?

  Battles are won by fire and by movement. The purpose of movement is to get the fire in a more advantageous place to play on the enemy. This is from the rear or the flank. You're gonna hear this guy talk about flanks all the time. He's gonna talk about fire and move, he's gonna talk about cover and move. As Leif and I called it in our book. Cover and move. And this is, again, this is teamwork. Teamwork. Constantly working with your team and your other teams that are with you to make sure that if I'm putting down cover fire, you're moving, you're moving. And when you're putting down cover fire, I'm moving.

• 29:01Jocko Willink?

  You've got to work together to make that happen. And every business in the world has multiple little units in it that have to cover and move.

• 29:14Jocko Willink?

  Talking about bravery and courage.

• 29:18Jocko Willink?

  If we take the generally accepted definition of bravery as a quality which knows not fear. I have never seen a brave man. All men are frightened. The more intelligent they are, the more frightened they are. The courageous man is the man who forces himself in spite of his fear to carry on.

• 29:42Jocko Willink?

  And where does that come from? It comes from discipline, pride, self-respect, self-confidence, and the love of glory. Are attributes which will make a man courageous even when he is afraid. There's not too many people, I mean, you would, Hackworth would never talk about the love of glory. It's just not, not his deal. Not his deal.

• 30:06Speaker 01

  The, when you, what you mentioned about bravery, just how you were talking with Sam Harris. About it where bravery is only present if you are scared of something. Because if you're not scared of it, you're not being brave to overcome anything or to go, you know, to do any kind of activity that's, you know, that you're scared of. So the very.

• 30:29Jocko Willink?

  Although I don't know if I necessarily agree with that. Because there's guys that are, you know, he says he's never seen anyone that's not, not afraid. I've seen some pretty, I mean, it's almost the word to use is like crazy. Guys that are just so brave and you look at them and they, you go, this guy's gonna, this guy. I had guys with me, you know, in my task unit and

• 30:56Jocko Willink?

  some of those guys were so brave that I didn't think they were gonna make it home.

• 31:05Jocko Willink?

  And.

• 31:06Speaker 01

  Is it because they were like, it's like they weren't scared to die at all, like it didn't?

• 31:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And, and you see the, almost a lack of self-preservation.

• 31:20Speaker 01

  Right.

• 31:20Jocko Willink?

  You know, not, not stupid, not, not suicidal, but like, oh, this guy doesn't think he can be killed. You know, we were talking about that on the last podcast and I forget the name of the major that was on the beach, landing at Tarawa, I think, and he's up and he's like, hey, look, they can't hit me, come on.

• 31:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:37Jocko Willink?

  I've seen guys do that.

• 31:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, so.

• 31:42Speaker 01

  As far as actual bravery goes though, so would you consider that um like let's say K two guys are gonna go go do some let's say an MMA fight right? And one guy's just really scared of competing in front of people. It's his first fight or something like that. Then you have this other guy who who's not who just feels different. Same exact situation, but he's like fired up. He's not scared at all and they both go into it. Do did they both exercise the same bravery?

• 32:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I don't know. You know, and I don't know if it matters.

• 32:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:16Jocko Willink?

  For one thing I can tell you, the guy that's acting like he's not scared is probably the one that's more scared.

• 32:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:22Jocko Willink?

  With MMA fights and it's and I actually see that combat two guys that are overly like bravado are probably more scared. And and again, there's nothing wrong with that. I'm not holding it against them, but um you know, I've seen guys sitting in briefs to go out on operations. That you can tell are are are petrified.

• 32:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:44Jocko Willink?

  Usually it's a guy that's not used to it. Maybe maybe someone that's visiting in an area of operations and shows up and it's oh, we're gonna take you on a on an operation. And you get to see them. They're they're scared because they're not used to it. All the guys from my task unit, you know, they might be scared, but they're confident. They know what they're doing.

• 33:05Speaker 01

  Right.

• 33:06Jocko Willink?

  They're they've they've put that fear aside over and over again, so it's not that big of a deal, but you see a guy dealing with that fear for the first time.

• 33:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:13Jocko Willink?

  And especially stands out because you've got a bunch of confident guys that that know that understand that understand the risks. So you can see their faces. Then you see like that guy that's come in from another area and is gonna go out on operation and and they're they're tapping their toes during the brief and they're looking around.

• 33:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 33:32Jocko Willink?

  And they got to overcome that fear. And if they stay there for a few weeks, they'll they'll get used to it, too.

• 33:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it could kind of be looked at as um just just the act itself, whatever act if it's understood as being.

• 33:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, Sam Harris's point was that. It it doesn't matter if there's a machine gun nest and you're horrified to go charge it and I'm not. And we both go charge it and you just had to pretend that you weren't scared. It doesn't matter. You were still being brave.

• 34:00Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 34:01Jocko Willink?

  And and I didn't have to pretend, but I'm being brave. So it doesn't matter whether you're pretending or not. You're brave if you go.

• 34:07Speaker 01

  Right.

• 34:08Jocko Willink?

  And.

• 34:09Speaker 01

  Or maybe just to overcome or do something that's understood generally as being scary. Just because it's not scary to you, scary to you, you're still being just as brave.

• 34:19Jocko Willink?

  You are.

• 34:20Speaker 01

  But yeah, I think, yeah, and I guess in a real black and white terms, it's like if you're not scared of this activity you're doing. And you do it and you're not scared of it, then you're not being brave. And that's just in generally speaking, like.

• 34:30Jocko Willink?

  You know, it's a good example, skydivers.

• 34:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:32Jocko Willink?

  Skydivers with 5,000 jumps, they're not.

• 34:34Speaker 01

  Right.

• 34:35Jocko Willink?

  They're not scared anymore.

• 34:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:36Jocko Willink?

  I mean, I know even when I've done like, you know, 50 jumps, you're not really scared anymore.

• 34:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 34:41Jocko Willink?

  You're just doing it. And guys that have thousands of jumps, they're not scared at all. That's what they do.

• 34:45Speaker 01

  Right.

• 34:45Jocko Willink?

  So they're not being brave. They're just doing their job. They're just doing their thing.

• 34:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. So what if some guy's jumping out for the first time and he's scared and he overcomes that fear and jumps out. He is being brave.

• 34:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 34:55Speaker 01

  Right? So yeah, that's kind of the point. Yeah. So if I go outside and check the mail, I'm not being brave.

• 34:59Jocko Willink?

  No, you're not being brave.

• 35:00Speaker 01

  But what if there's like a tiger or something out there and I really need that mail. That's pretty brave, right?

• 35:06Jocko Willink?

  Tigers going after tigers. Yeah.

• 35:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, you're right. You're right.

• 35:12Jocko Willink?

  Section here, small unit tactics. Hey, you know, I was questioning whether I wanted to put this in there, but I know that I'm getting a lot of feedback from guys that are in the military, guys that are in SWAT. And this is something that I used to talk about, and I know it's true. Squads should seldom be split. So you want to keep your forces together as much as possible. However, if it is necessary to split a squad. Be sure that the unit separated as at least capable of mutual supports is something I used to hammer the seals about. If you get too far away from your other unit where you can't support them anymore. You that's problematic now that now that other units alone. And that means that each unit that's separate should have the ability to support. It means it has to have some firepower and some strength.

• 35:55Jocko Willink?

  This means that the unit separated from the squad should have not fewer than three men. The squad possesses in itself weapons necessary for a base and fire and maneuvering element. This should be, this should be, this should be its invariable method of attack. But the squad leader should not spend so much time thinking which way he is going to envelop that he suffers casualties which would have been avoided had he attacked at once. So don't hesitate, don't sit around. When it's time to get it on, get it on.

• 36:32Jocko Willink?

  Patton's all about the taking action.

• 36:36Jocko Willink?

  Another small unit tactic, this is a short one. Always capture the highest terrain feature in your vicinity at once and stay on it. And that is something that we executed all the time in Ramadi. Get in the high ground, get in those buildings, find the three-story building amongst the two-story buildings, find the two-story building amongst the one-story building. Always looking for that high ground. In the rural areas, any kind of knoll, any kind of bump, anything that gives you the high ground is what you're looking for. And as I said last time, from an ethical and from a moral standpoint.

• 37:15Speaker 01

  High ground.

• 37:15Jocko Willink?

  Take the high ground or the high ground will take you.

• 37:20Jocko Willink?

  You gotta watch out for that.

• 37:26Jocko Willink?

  Don't delay.

• 37:29Jocko Willink?

  The best is the enemy of the good. And these are, I mean, that's just a common saying now. The best is the enemy of the good. By this, I mean that a good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan next week. War is a very simple thing and the determining characteristics are self-confidence, speed, and audacity. None of these things can ever be perfect, but they can be good. He's talking about now general officers, meaning the senior leaders. And these apply to everything, not just senior leaders.

• 38:08Jocko Willink?

  There are more tired division commanders than there are tired divisions. Tired officers are always pessimists. Remember this when evaluating reports. Generals must never show doubt, discouragement, or fatigue. Generals should always adhere to one type of dress so that soldiers will recognize them. They must always be very neat. And most importantly, from my perspective, I like what he says here. In cold weather, general officers must be careful not to appear to dress more warmly than the men.

• 38:43Jocko Willink?

  You don't want to do that. You don't want to be in the comfort zone when the boys are suffering. You look like you're debating.

• 38:49Speaker 01

  No, no, no, I'm not debating, I was thinking about it.

• 38:51Jocko Willink?

  That's good, because you're about to get shut down.

• 38:53Speaker 01

  I have a question.

• 38:55Jocko Willink?

  Send the question.

• 38:56Speaker 01

  So.

• 38:58Speaker 01

  Let's say you're a boss, right, you have this office and this office is like decked out. Meanwhile, everyone on your team, they have normal offices. Is that an example of what he's against?

• 39:08Jocko Willink?

  No, generally because you actually do have more work to do. You have, you have to have meetings in your office. And, and it's interesting too, because I, I didn't highlight it in, in this, for this series, but they were saying that General Patton wasn't a four-star general, he was a 28-star general. Because when he would put his full uniform on, he had four stars on his collar, on each collar, four star on each shoulder, four stars in the helmet, and four stars on each one of the handles of his, of his pearl handled pistol grip 45s. So the guy was like a little bit of, I mean, that's a, that's a showman, that's a, that's a, that's a diva, right?

• 39:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:51Jocko Willink?

  So he didn't, you know, he, he knew that there's a certain amount of showmanship to being in a leadership position. And that's sort of what he's talking about by being recognizable. I mean, he was very recognizable, he had stars all over his cars and everything.

• 40:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it's more like the comfort of battle, so.

• 40:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, but you could, you could, as a CEO, you could absolutely take that to the wrong level where you're, you know, just living in total luxury and all your people are out and. You know cramped into cubicles that you know your your folks would definitely look at you in a negative way.

• 40:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:23Jocko Willink?

  But to but to have what's needed for the job, you know, when I was TU commander, I had an office that was mine, you know, and I had space in there to work.

• 40:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 40:33Jocko Willink?

  Um, but I wasn't, you know, shipping in steaks for me to have every night while the men were eating.

• 40:39Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 40:40Jocko Willink?

  M R Es.

• 40:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:43Jocko Willink?

  So you just gotta be careful. Keep yourself in check a little bit.

• 40:46Speaker 01

  What about when you travel, you go first class. Meanwhile, you send your team and coach.

• 40:51Jocko Willink?

  That once again, sometimes the the boss is traveling in first class because when he lands, he's got to present.

• 40:56Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 40:57Jocko Willink?

  And he's got to, he's got to be a little bit better rested. Sometimes the boss man is just sick of being cramped in a little tiny seats.

• 41:04Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 41:06Jocko Willink?

  But yeah, you do got it. You got to keep that in check. And I'll tell you, when I was, when I, when I worked for the admiral of all the SEALs, we didn't fly first class. We were in the cheap seats. They are very careful about that. They don't want to think that the, oh, the, the military elite is flying around first class. No, we were in the cheap seats, sitting in the back of Delta, you know, eating peanuts.

• 41:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's so many justifiable reasons in business like, and I think you would go along with that, too.

• 41:38Jocko Willink?

  But you just got to use your judgment. You know, you got to use your judgment and make sure that, you know, everyone's wearing, you know, a ten year old field jacket when it gets cold and you're wearing a brand new down and Gore-Tex jacket.

• 41:50Speaker 01

  Right.

• 41:51Jocko Willink?

  Your people are gonna not respect you.

• 41:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:53Jocko Willink?

  You know, you can't just deck yourself out when the boys

• 41:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:58Jocko Willink?

  or the troopers are suffering.

• 42:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. And and how he mentioned where or how you mentioned what he's talking about where it can be categorized as being recognizable.

• 42:10Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 42:10Speaker 01

  So there's a lot of things, even stuff outside of just uniform that a CEO, how he presents himself.

• 42:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 42:16Speaker 01

  That'll keep him recognizable.

• 42:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 42:18Speaker 01

  For all these reasons, but I'm sure. I'm sure most of the time, no one's perfect where they're gonna, they're gonna start doing it just cause.

• 42:26Jocko Willink?

  But you do have to, you know, there's good, there's good business leaders now that did follow this type of lead. I mean, look at some of these new, younger business leaders, they're not getting decked out. Yeah. I saw a picture of, uh, the guy that runs Facebook. I saw a picture of his closet the other day. He's got like a bunch of gray t-shirts in there.

• 42:42Speaker 01

  Right. And, um, from what I hear, I haven't like been to the office or nothing. He, he's, he doesn't have an office. He, there's this open space, everyone's coding and stuff like that. And he's just cruising in, in there as well, you know? So yeah, there's, yeah, I guess there's all kinds of different.

• 42:57Jocko Willink?

  So people relate to him a little bit more, yeah?

• 42:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. I, I guess it would depend on the business as well.

• 43:04Jocko Willink?

  However, this part is undebatable. A general officer who will invariably assume the responsibility for failure, whether he deserves it or not, and invariably gives credit for success to others, whether they deserve it or not, will achieve outstanding success. It's a little something that we call extreme ownership, you know? That's, that's the name of our book, Someone That's Taking Ownership. And this is George S. Patton. Sorry for jacking your ideas, George S. Patton.

• 43:33Speaker 01

  I think that's crazy how that was like such a prominent idea back then.

• 43:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 43:39Speaker 01

  Cause like growing up and, and I don't know, I just never heard about that.

• 43:43Jocko Willink?

  I, I know. And, and when Leif and I presented this book to people, they don't say, oh, this is a very common theme that I've heard my whole life. No, they go, this is outstanding. And we're saying the exact same thing that General George S. Patton's saying right here.

• 43:58Jocko Willink?

  Which is, uh, obviously extremely important.

• 44:03Jocko Willink?

  Issuing orders. The best way to issue orders is by word of mouth from one general to the next. Failing this, telephone conversations, which should be recorded at each end. However, in order to have a confirmatory memorandum of all oral orders given, a short written order should always be made out, not necessarily at the time of issuing the order, but it should reach the junior prior to carrying out the order. So that if he has forgotten anything, he will be reminded of it and further in order that he may be aware that his senior has taken definite responsibility for the operation ordered orally. This is something that I used to do this all the time. If I had a conversation with my boss, I still do it to this day.

• 44:46Jocko Willink?

  If I have a conversation with someone and we talk about something, I'm following it up with a little email. Because also oral conversations, people hear what they want to hear. And they might hear two different things. You know, if I tell you, hey, we're going to record this podcast. Hey, can we record this podcast on Saturday? You're like, oh, yeah, definitely. Does that mean we are? Does that mean in your mind, you think we are, but I didn't come back, you know, so I just follow stuff up and I used to do that in SEAL teams too. You know, I'd get an order, I'd get, I'd have a conversation with someone that was either above me or below me or whatever. I'd follow it up with an email of what I thought the conversation meant and say, hey, just to confirm what we talked about, here's the three bullet points. I'm going to do this, you're going to do that, we're going to do this and boom, it's done.

• 45:30Jocko Willink?

  And we have a document of it and it exists and that way we're confirmed.

• 45:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, and so how you bring up that example where if you say, hey, can we record a podcast on Saturday? Technically, you just, that's a yes or no question, like, yes, we can, like, we're, we have that ability. That's a, you didn't schedule anything technically. You said, so I could have taken it either way.

• 45:51Jocko Willink?

  You could be like, yeah, we can. And then I show up here at eight and you're.

• 45:54Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, I didn't know we were actually going to do it. You just said, you know, when I first started getting more, more hiring clients, it was immediately noticeable that that was a common thing. They'd always follow up with, with an email right after and helps so much, man.

• 46:09Jocko Willink?

  It does. You gotta do it. It is my, oh, this, I love this. It is my opinion that army orders should not exceed a page and a half of typewritten text. And it was my practice not to issue orders longer than this. Usually it can be done on one page and the back of the page is used for a sketch map. And my favorite part about this is if you get someone that can't give you their orders in like a page.

• 46:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:35Jocko Willink?

  Then that means their orders are too complicated.

• 46:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:38Jocko Willink?

  That means they need to simplify their plan.

• 46:42Jocko Willink?

  And he's gonna say this a few times. Commanders must remember that the issuance of an order or the devising of a plan is only about five percent of the responsibility of command. The other ninety-five percent is to ensure by personal observation or through interposing of staff officers that the order is carried out. Orders must be issued early enough to permit time to disseminate them. So he's saying like, eh eh, it's only five percent of your job to come up with a plan and disseminate the plan? The other ninety-five percent of your job is to make sure it happens. Take ownership of the plan and get it implemented. And this is the most important part of this section.

• 47:22Jocko Willink?

  Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what and they, tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity. So you wanna give them sort of the broad, hey, this is what I want you to get done and let them figure out how to do it. You're not gonna be able to tell everybody on your team how, what to do and how to do it and all that. You gotta let them run.

• 47:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:47Jocko Willink?

  You gotta use the little decentralized command, as we like to say.

• 47:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, in the creative world, that's a really, really significant thing to, to say what you want and then let that person do it. Cause if you have some creative vision.

• 48:01Jocko Willink?

  Let's do a little critique of Jocko. How do I do with that? Cause you're, you're sort of the creative end here.

• 48:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:06Jocko Willink?

  And how am I?

• 48:07Speaker 01

  Good, very good.

• 48:08Jocko Willink?

  Cause all I do, I say, you know what, Echo, here's what I think.

• 48:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:11Jocko Willink?

  And then I just back away and I let you run with your game.

• 48:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that's the, yeah, that's, that's the way to go for sure. No, I don't micromanage, especially in the creative field. Well, I don't know. I'm sure it's, it's equally as applicable everywhere.

• 48:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 48:24Speaker 01

  Right?

• 48:24Jocko Willink?

  I realize that I can't, when you was, you got an expert, you know? It's the same thing, it was in the teams, it's the same thing in the, in the business world. You, if you're the, if you're the big boss, man, you shouldn't, you, you're not gonna know how to do all the technical things at the folks on the frontline. You're not gonna have the creativity, cause you don't have the capability, cause you've got other things you should be worried about.

• 48:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:45Jocko Willink?

  So get on those other things and let your people run.

• 48:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:48Jocko Willink?

  Let them run.

• 48:50Jocko Willink?

  In this, uh, it is sad to remember that when anyone has fairly mastered the art of command, the necessity for that art usually expires, either through the termination of the war, or through the advanced age of the commander. And this is just a, this is just a damn shame. And it's the way it is, and it's, it's this way in the military. You're, the, when you start feeling like you've really gotten good at that job, you're on to your next job.

• 49:17Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 49:18Jocko Willink?

  And, uh, that doesn't feel good. It's, it's, it's a bummer. Um, and there was a little example when I talked about him being ultra aggressive. And this is from a section, this is from a section which I didn't take, I don't think I took much out of it all. This one's called, or this section was called, "Earning My Pain." He talks about these important decisions that he made, but they're, they're, they're a little bit complex, some of them. But this one was fairly concise. About the 5th of September, it became apparent that we would run out of gasoline, he's talking about for his tanks. We would run out of gasoline. I directed the two corps to continue the advance until the tanks ran out of gas, and

• 50:02Jocko Willink?

  then to go on on foot. This was actually done, and the bridgehead across the Mazel River was secured as a result. There was considerable resistance on the part of the corps commanders to do what appeared to them an unnecessarily dangerous operation. Its success again proved that it was not dangerous. So, that's, that's pretty aggressive. Hey, you drive until the tanks run out of gas, when the tanks run out of gas, get out of the tanks and walk.

• 50:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:30Jocko Willink?

  That's, uh, pretty legit. We used to say, like, hey, in the SEAL teams, hey, we're gonna take the boats, when the boats run out of, of gas, we'll tow the boats, if the towing boats run out of gas, we'll get out and swim, we'll keep going until we get it done. Letter of instruction number two. So these are what, these are what this guy, and I love this, this is what this guy was writing as instructions to be handed out to all of his men. I mean, and this is documented.

• 51:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 51:04Jocko Willink?

  So you wonder what Patton thinks about it? You don't have to wonder, it's right here. So here's his, his letter of instruction number two.

• 51:13Jocko Willink?

  Discipline. There is only one sort of discipline, perfect discipline. Men cannot have good battle discipline and poor administrative discipline. Discipline is based on pride in the profession of arms, on meticulous attention to detail, and on mutual respect and confidence. Discipline must be a habit so ingrained that it is stronger than the excitement of battle or the fear of death. And this is why it's every day and every decision that you make in keeping that discipline. And I actually have been hearing, you know, I hear that this, this, that your willpower deteriorates, and I actually don't believe that. I think the more, they say, oh, you

• 51:55Jocko Willink?

  know, throughout the day, your willpower, if you test it too many times, it gets weaker and weaker. And I actually don't believe that. I actually believe it gets stronger. Mine gets stronger. When I'm, the more I hold the line, the stronger the hold is, the better the grip is.

• 52:10Speaker 01

  And that's day by day, you think?

• 52:11Jocko Willink?

  Day by day. Day by day. And normally, like, it's all together. It's all grouped together. When you wake up early and you get your workout in, it, you just stay on track. You're like, you know what, I'm not gonna eat that food that I don't need right now. I'm not, you know, it's so much easier. But the day where you're like, oh, I didn't work, I woke up late, and I didn't get my workout done, and you know what, there's a donut.

• 52:34Speaker 01

  Right.

• 52:35Jocko Willink?

  You know, and you break down.

• 52:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:37Jocko Willink?

  So you wanna, you wanna use the discipline, discipline enforces discipline.

• 52:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:41Jocko Willink?

  Discipline, more discipline makes more discipline.

• 52:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, it kinda seems like that it would be just like any other exercise, right? You're exercising your discipline. So, and may, I don't know, but maybe this is what that means when they say it, your willpower wears down. Let's say you're trying to stick to this diet, right? And you're gonna be like, hey, I'm not gonna let myself get too hungry, because when I let myself get too hungry, I know that donuts seem way more viable.

• 53:11Jocko Willink?

  Donuts are not viable.

• 53:12Speaker 01

  But, you know, as far as the payoff, you know, detriment, it, you know, it's like, basically, so if I test my willpower, I'm just saying throughout the span of a day, or, you know, however many hours, when you start to get hungry. So... They're saying, okay, so let's say you take your hunger to a certain point, then you say, you know what, I'm gonna stick, stick, stay strong. Usually I, I eat way before this, but I'm in a real hunger, I really want those donuts, but you know what, I'm gonna stick with it, right? And you have that, that one experience of taking your hunger to a certain point and still sticking to it.

• 53:45Speaker 01

  You do that, you let your hunger go on for even more, that's your willpower wearing down, wearing down. But let's say you stuck to it, boom, and you stuck to it that day, then the next day, you have experience going that far in your hunger and you will be stronger and know how to deal with it.

• 54:01Jocko Willink?

  I actually, I actually disagree with you. I think that when you stay strong, you get stronger. And when you break, like, how often does this happen? I'll just have one bite of that donut.

• 54:11Speaker 01

  For me, every single time.

• 54:12Jocko Willink?

  And then you have that one bite of what happens.

• 54:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, every single one bite, ten bites, same thing.

• 54:18Jocko Willink?

  So that's what I'm saying. Stay strong. Hold your discipline in place.

• 54:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, so to compare, compare that to like a workout, right? So let's say I, I do a hard, um, set of, I don't know, pushups.

• 54:28Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 54:31Speaker 01

  Then I do another hard set of pushups.

• 54:33Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 54:33Speaker 01

  I'm gonna be less strong on that second set and I do another set.

• 54:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 54:37Speaker 01

  I keep testing it, but the next day or the next week, I'm gonna have benefits from that workout.

• 54:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 54:44Speaker 01

  So it does reinforce, um, so the workout, the fatigue is that temporary fatigue, then you recover from it and then you're stronger in that way.

• 54:51Jocko Willink?

  But I think the better example is like, when you say no to the one bite, you are, it's easier to say no to the whole donut.

• 54:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:59Jocko Willink?

  When you say yes to the one bite, it's easier to say yes to the whole no doubt. So say no to donuts.

• 55:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:06Jocko Willink?

  Keep your discipline intact.

• 55:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, man.

• 55:08Jocko Willink?

  Discipline, back to the book. Discipline can only be obtained when officers are so imbued with the sense of their awful obligation to their men and to their country that they cannot tolerate negligence.

• 55:22Jocko Willink?

  Officers who fail to correct errors or to praise excellence are valueless in peace and dangerous misfits in war. So he's giving equal, equal importance to correcting errors and praising excellence. You can see how important that is. And that's something that I've never been very good at. I was never a big praiser of excellence.

• 55:43Speaker 01

  Mm.

• 55:43Jocko Willink?

  And, and in reading this, I look back and say, I should have done that more.

• 55:49Jocko Willink?

  Officers must assert themselves by example and by voice. They must be preeminent in courage, deportment, and dress.

• 55:59Jocko Willink?

  One of the primary purposes of discipline is to produce alertness. A man who is so lethargic that he fails to salute will fail, will fall an easy victim to the enemy.

• 56:14Jocko Willink?

  So the discipline just keeps you on track. Combat experience has proven that ceremonies such as formal guard mounts, formal retreat formations, and regular and supervised revelry formations are a great help and in some cases essential to prepare men and officers for battle. To give them that perfect discipline, that smartness of appearance, that alertness, without which battles cannot be won. And this is something, you know, the SEAL teams, for sure, are

• 56:46Jocko Willink?

  very undisciplined when it comes to uniforms, when it comes to marching. I mean, we don't march. I mean, we, we barely can get in, whenever, whenever a bunch of SEALs have to do something militaristic, it's usually a pretty, we have to dumb it down and make it as easy as possible. Because we just don't do it enough. You know, and, and that's just, that's, I'm just, I'm kind of stating that because we spend all of our time, you know, when we're, when we're practicing for war, we're not doing anything ceremonial. We practice for war. So this is kind of a, a funny little dichotomy there is that SEALs generally are not ready for military inspection, but they're ready for combat. So there's a little, little hypocrite,

• 57:30Jocko Willink?

  a little hypocritical, hypocritical item about that.

• 57:36Jocko Willink?

  Combat principles. Number one, there is no approved solution to any tactical situation.

• 57:47Jocko Willink?

  Little theme of creativity coming back again.

• 57:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:49Jocko Willink?

  There's no approved solution. You've got to figure it out. There is only one tactical principle, which is not subject to change. It is to use the means at hand to inflict the maximum amount of wounds, death, and destruction on the enemy, on the enemy in the minimum amount of time.

• 58:12Jocko Willink?

  That's a pretty simple and straightforward principle. And according to General Patton, it does not change.

• 58:22Jocko Willink?

  Battles are won by frightening the enemy. Fear is induced by inflicting death and wounds on him. Death and wounds are produced by fire. Fire from the rear is more deadly and three times more effective than that from the front. But to get fire behind the enemy, you must hold him by frontal fire and move rapidly around his flank. Frontal attacks against prepared positions should be avoided if possible. I told you he was gonna talk about flanks, he's talking about flanks.

• 58:58Jocko Willink?

  Catch the enemy by the nose with fire and kick him in the pants with fire in place through movement. That's flanks. You can never get too strong. Get every man and gun you can secure, provided it does not unduly delay your attack. I used to say, we'd try to figure out how many guys we'd bring on a mission. And I'd get some kind of, you know, restriction like, hey, we only want you to bring this many guys. And I'd say, well, this isn't soccer where we're only allowed to bring 11 per side. Why would I not bring 38 if I can bring 38? Why would I stop myself at 28/7? You know, bring as many people as you can, let's go, let's rock and roll.

• 59:38Jocko Willink?

  The larger force and the more violence you use in the attack, whether it be men, tanks, or ammunition, the smaller will be your proportional losses. Violence of action is what we used to call that in the SEAL teams. Violence of action. Never yield ground. It is cheaper to hold what you have than to retake what you have lost.

• 1:00:04Jocko Willink?

  Never permit a unit to dig in until the final objective is reached. Then dig, wire and mine. So you can't rest until you get to a good spot. I, this is a little statement I use a lot in jujitsu coaching. Cause, cause people. They, they get in a position and they rest before it's time to rest.

• 1:00:25Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:00:26Jocko Willink?

  You know, you gotta, you gotta get the guard back. You've got it. If someone, if someone passes your guard, you don't, you'll settle there on your back and let them settle in and start to smash you. As soon as someone passes your guard, you're recovering, you work, you don't, you don't settle down until you're back to a good position. You can never do that.

• 1:00:43Speaker 01

  I noticed that, and I actually brought it up to you, remember? Last, just last week or whatever, when we rolled. And I was like, there's something that I noticed about you. That, um, and that was that in the scramble, you won't just settle and hang out in my guard. You don't even accept the guard. We talked about it a long time ago before, but it was really, for whatever reason, just really prevalent that day. That, yeah, in the scramble, you know, scramble goes on for, let's say a longer time. Let's say the scramble goes on for six seconds, right? It's a pretty long scramble. It seems like you still wouldn't, you wouldn't even stop the scramble until you're beyond the guard. You know? Yeah, you won't just hang out when me, I thought I'd sit right in that guard. Get my rest on.

• 1:01:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:28Speaker 01

  But, um, and it's surprisingly painfully effective.

• 1:01:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:33Speaker 01

  When you do that.

• 1:01:34Jocko Willink?

  I was talking to Dean about that yesterday. If Dean is in a mindset where he's accepting a guard pass or he's accepting. It, it becomes a much, much, much easier game. When he decides he's not gonna let you settle until he gets to the advantage, advantageous position. It's a nightmare.

• 1:01:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:52Jocko Willink?

  Because he won't stop moving and he's a good scrambler.

• 1:01:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:57Jocko Willink?

  You know what's interesting about these? I have a note in here that, you know, he said, never yield ground, never permitted units dig in. He says never. And that's something that I don't say.

• 1:02:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:02:07Jocko Willink?

  Because it takes away the fact that of what he said earlier about there's no written rule, there's no approved method.

• 1:02:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:02:14Jocko Willink?

  You, you shouldn't use that word never because sometimes you should yield ground.

• 1:02:18Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:02:19Jocko Willink?

  And sometimes you should dig in even when the final objective is so. I know you're just being extreme, but it is, I did make a note of that to point out. General training, back to the book. More emphasis will be placed on the hardening of men and officers. All soldiers and officers should be able to run a mile with combat pack in 10 minutes and march eight miles in two hours.

• 1:02:42Jocko Willink?

  The hardening of men and officers. He goes on to say, sharpen axes, pickaxes and shovels now and keep them sharp.

• 1:02:55Jocko Willink?

  That's just an attitude, right? Look, the pickaxe that you're going to use to dig in, make it sharp. In case you gotta hack somebody's brain out.

• 1:03:04Speaker 01

  Keep it sharp.

• 1:03:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Battles are fought by platoons and squads. Place emphasis on small unit combat instructions so that it's conducted in the same precision as close order drill. A good solution applied with vigor now is better than a perfect solution 10 minutes later. Common theme.

• 1:03:29Jocko Willink?

  Needless requirements.

• 1:03:33Jocko Willink?

  He's actually got a section here called needless requirements. There is a tendency, and I used to see this in the military and I see it in businesses now. This is the needless requirements. There is a tendency for the chain of command to overload junior officers by excessive requirements in a way of training and reports.

• 1:03:53Jocko Willink?

  You will alleviate this burden by eliminating non-essential demands. You go to any business and they've got reports that people are generating and meetings that they're attending and conference calls. That's what this is about. Those are needless requirements. Get rid of them.

• 1:04:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, man, especially those meetings, like.

• 1:04:14Speaker 01

  I think people just like meetings cuz it it um it helps them think or feel like they're doing something.

• 1:04:21Jocko Willink?

  You know what you do? You make meetings twenty minutes long.

• 1:04:24Speaker 01

  Just call them on the phone.

• 1:04:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, or you just call them on the phone. Yeah.

• 1:04:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:28Jocko Willink?

  But meetings would make them make your meetings twenty minutes long if you have to schedule them. Show up on the meeting, ready to, don't you don't need to learn anything. Let's know what we're gonna talk about. Let's talk about the decision cuz that's what everyone needs to get on the phone for. It's for the decision.

• 1:04:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:42Jocko Willink?

  You should you can get informed by reading a quick bulleted list. So don't go over those bullets with me when I I already did that.

• 1:04:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, unless they have questions or something like that, like I.

• 1:04:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, if you got a question, that's what I'm saying. That's the discussion piece.

• 1:04:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:56Speaker 01

  And then in the meeting, a lot of the time. Let's say there's a meeting of ten guys and let's say three, four guys are are discussing stuff and maybe they're trying to solve this problem that they specifically have and then the other few guys. They feel compelled to wanna be contributing to the meeting, so they say just more of the stuff that's so unnecessary. Just so they can have something to say in the meeting.

• 1:05:18Jocko Willink?

  Sidebar, take it somewhere else. You've angered Echo, people.

• 1:05:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, the the meetings, yeah, keep them twenty minutes.

• 1:05:27Jocko Willink?

  There's a whole, there's a whole lot of people in America in business world that are listening to that. Needless requirements and they're thinking about the needless requirements they fulfill on a daily basis and it makes them angry.

• 1:05:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:39Jocko Willink?

  It's a it's a it's a source of frustration. I talk to folks about it all the time. Like they feel like they don't have time to do their job and we felt like that in the military. Like, are you serious? We have to do, you know, fill out this document, attend another call with the so and so commander. Ju- just tell me, you know, give me the highlights and let me do my work. I got a job to do here, people.

• 1:06:02Jocko Willink?

  Infantry. Infantry must move in order to close with the infantry must move in order to close with the enemy. It must shoot in order to move. Again, there's cover and move. When physical targets are not visible. The fire of all infantry we- weapons must search the area occupied by the enemy. Use marching fire. It reduces the accuracy of his fire and increases our confidence. Shoot short. Ricochets make nastier sounds and wounds.

• 1:06:33Jocko Willink?

  That's something that they used to have us do all the time in SEAL Teams. So you don't, you make sure you're shooting low. If you're gonna make a mistake, aim low so the, so the rounds hit in front of where the enemy is. And they ricochet up and they hit him with all kinds of frag and rocks and you have a chance of still hitting him. If you're shooting over their head and it misses him, it's gone.

• 1:06:49Speaker 01

  Gotcha. Interesting.

• 1:06:51Jocko Willink?

  To halt under fire is folly. To halt under fire and not fire back is suicide. And this is what we just talked about in Jiu Jitsu. To halt under fire, that's what, that's what you're doing.

• 1:07:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:02Jocko Willink?

  When you, when, when you let me keep scrambling, when you stop scrambling, that's when I'm gonna get a little, you're halting under fire. And guess what? It says here that that is suicide. Move forward out of fire. Officers must set the example.

• 1:07:20Jocko Willink?

  Few men are killed by the bayonet. Many are scared by it. Bayonets should be fixed when the firefight starts. Bayonets must be sharpened by the individual soldier. The German hates the bayonet and is inferior to our men with it. Our men should know this. Little psychological warfare here. You gotta sharpen your own bayonet. You're better at it than the enemy. Put that thing on the end of your gun when the firefight starts and get ready to get some.

• 1:07:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. That's, that's General Patton right there, keeping it real.

• 1:07:58Jocko Willink?

  I wanted to work for General Patton.

• 1:08:00Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:08:02Jocko Willink?

  Care of men. Officers are responsible not only for the conduct of their men in battle, but also for their health and contentment when not fighting. An officer, and this is where we're going back to the CEO and how they act. An officer must be the last man to take shelter from fire and the first to move forward. Similarly, he must be the last man to look after his own comfort at the close of a march. He must see that his men are cared for. The officer must constantly inter- interest himself in the rations of the men. He should know his men so well that any sign of sickness or nervous strain will be apparent to him and he can take such action as may be necessary.

• 1:08:47Jocko Willink?

  Same thing we were, we were talking about.

• 1:08:51Jocko Willink?

  And we're about to, uh, wrap this up here with a couple more. And I kinda saved the best for last, to be quite honest with you. Such as this right here, command leadership. And this is, this is actually another letter of instruction. So again, this is just what, you wanna know what, how General Patton thought. Here it is, his own words on what he wanted his men to know. As they prepared for combat.

• 1:09:20Jocko Willink?

  Leadership, full duty. Each, in his appropriate sphere, will lead in person. Any commander who fails to obtain his objective, and who is not dead or severely wounded, has not done his full duty.

• 1:09:42Jocko Willink?

  Doesn't need to be much clearer than that.

• 1:09:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:45Jocko Willink?

  There's, there's your, there's your standard. If you're not dead, or severely wounded, and you haven't achieved your objective, objective, you haven't done your full duty. Visits to the front. The commanding general or his chief of staff should visit the front daily. The function of these is to observe, not to meddle. In addition to their own specialty, they must observe and report anything of military importance. Remember, that praise is more valuable than blame. So if you're gonna go to the frontline troops, don't go up there and blame them, praise them. Remember too, that your primary mission as a leader is to see with your own eyes and be seen by your troops,

• 1:10:30Jocko Willink?

  while engaged in personal reconnaissance.

• 1:10:35Jocko Willink?

  Execution. In carrying out a mission, the promulgation of the order represents not over 10% of your responsibility. The remaining 90% consists in assuring by means of personal supervision on the ground, by yourself and your staff, proper and vigorous execution. And that's one we already talked about. Yeah, you put together the plan. Yeah, you disseminated the plan. That's great. Your job is to make it happen and ensure that it happens. Take ownership of it and execute it.

• 1:11:12Jocko Willink?

  Plans. Plans must be simple and flexible. Actually, they are only a form of data plane from which you build as necessity directs or opportunity offers.

• 1:11:28Jocko Willink?

  So he's saying that plan is just a, just something to build off of as, as necessity directs or opportunity offers. I got asked this the other day at a, at a, at an event, you know, when do you know when it's time to change the plan? When, I, I, you know, when necessity directs or opportunity offers, that's when you make the change.

• 1:11:54Jocko Willink?

  Plans should be made by the people who are going to execute them.

• 1:12:02Jocko Willink?

  Formal orders. Formal orders will be preceded by letters of instruction and by personal conferences. In this way, the whole purpose of the operation will be made clear, together with the mission to be accomplished by each major unit. So he's saying that the, the whole purpose of the operation will be made clear.

• 1:12:28Jocko Willink?

  So that if during combat, during combat, communication breaks down, each commander can and must so act as to obtain the general objective.

• 1:12:42Jocko Willink?

  There you go. So if you understand what the overall broad mission is, when we go out to attack and all of a sudden you're separated from us, or you don't, can't communicate with us anymore, or so- something happens and you need to make an adjustment to your plan, as long as you know what the broad mission is, the whole purpose of the operation, which later ended up being called the commander's intent, that's what we called it in the, in the modern military. As long as you know what the commander's intent is, what the intent of the operation is, then you can execute on your own, you don't need any more direction from me.

• 1:13:17Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:13:18Jocko Willink?

  Go and make it happen.

• 1:13:22Jocko Willink?

  Keep your own orders short. Get them out in time. Issue them personally by voice when you can.

• 1:13:32Jocko Willink?

  Keep troops informed. Use every means before and after combat to tell the troops what they are doing, going, what they are going to do and what they have done.

• 1:13:47Jocko Willink?

  Reiterating, discipline, there is only one kind of discipline, perfect discipline. If you do not enforce and maintain discipline, you are potential murderers. You must set the example. Condition. High physical condition is vital to victory.

• 1:14:09Jocko Willink?

  We talked about that and we talk about that all the time. Your physical conditioning. High physical condition is vital to victory. There are more tired corps and division commanders than there are tired corps and divisions. Fatigue makes cowards of us all. Men in condition do not tire. So you gotta be in shape.

• 1:14:36Jocko Willink?

  And here's the clothes and this is the last one. And it's the shortest one. And it's probably the most important one to remember from General Patton.

• 1:14:51Jocko Willink?

  Courage.

• 1:14:54Jocko Willink?

  Do not take counsel of your fears.

• 1:15:00Jocko Willink?

  And that's it. That's what he had to say about courage to all of his troops as they embarked on this intense combat day after day, week after week. You want to know what you do with your fear? Do not take counsel of your fears.

• 1:15:20Speaker 01

  No vote?

• 1:15:21Jocko Willink?

  They don't get a vote. Your fears don't get a vote. So next time you feel that fear, no matter what it is, it's pretty easy. You don't take counsel of it, they get no vote. That's General Patton. Great book, great leader, lots to learn, lots to pass on.

• 1:15:48Jocko Willink?

  War as I knew it.

• 1:15:51Jocko Willink?

  Questions from the interwebs.

• 1:15:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. First question, Jocko Willink, is BJJ really practical for street defense where there are no rules? My understanding is that it doesn't fare well against knives and multiple attackers compared to something like Krav Maga, Muay Thai, boxing.

• 1:16:11Jocko Willink?

  So this is a

• 1:16:15Jocko Willink?

  good question, obviously, and it's a question that we get a lot. I get a lot. I actually did a video. We did a video like this and Tim Ferriss put it out. So you can look for that if you kind of want to hear another version of this. Maybe we could link to it on Jocko Podcast.

• 1:16:33Speaker 01

  I think we can do that, yeah.

• 1:16:35Jocko Willink?

  Excellent.

• 1:16:37Jocko Willink?

  What, okay, so self-defense. We're talking about true self-defense here. First and foremost, most important thing, and I actually didn't say this on the last video, but I should say it now, is situational awareness and putting yourself in good situations where bad things are not going to happen to you and doing that to the best of your ability and being aware of your surroundings. That's of the very important first step in self-defense.

• 1:17:11Jocko Willink?

  Second,

• 1:17:13Jocko Willink?

  guns.

• 1:17:17Jocko Willink?

  If you are a person that really needs to defend yourself and you live in a horrible area and there's violent people around and you might be a small, a very small person, or you might be elderly, or you might have some sort of a physical limitation, then how you're going to defend yourself is using guns, using a gun. So

• 1:17:47Jocko Willink?

  I mean, that's just, that's just the way it is.

• 1:17:52Jocko Willink?

  Now, okay, so that being said.

• 1:17:58Jocko Willink?

  Maybe you can't have a gun, maybe you don't have a gun, and you don't always wanna have to pull a gun out. Even though a gun is a great deterrent, and most people, if they see that you have a gun, are not gonna wanna fight you anymore. But obviously, you can't be just yanking a gun out at anything that happens, and you don't always have them with you. For instance, you know, in certain places, you're not allowed to have a gun, certain states, you're not allowed to have a gun, in the, in the water, if you're surfing, you're not allowed to have a gun. Uh, so, what do you do? How does jujitsu stack up against these other martial arts?

• 1:18:34Jocko Willink?

  I say that you should learn jujitsu first, should be the first martial art that you try and learn to defend yourself. And there's a reason for that, there's a bunch of reasons for that. Number one, i- in sort of a base reason, but jujitsu is probably the most complex to learn. There's the, it's the, it's the most three-dimensional martial art. It's not linear, it's very three-dimensional, there's a ton to learn, and it's infinite in what you can learn. So you wanna get into it early, because it's gonna take longer to learn, but that's, that's actually a secondary reason.

• 1:19:14Jocko Willink?

  The primary reason to learn jujitsu first is because of the nature of self-defense situations. So,

• 1:19:28Jocko Willink?

  we are born with our primary form of self-defense, and we learn it from a very young age. And our primary form of self-defense will keep you safe from most of these situations, and that is running. And using your legs to run. So, a- and if you think of, now, think about this, you're kinda chuckling because you don't understand the gravity of what I'm saying, cuz it's very accurate. So, listen. We're talking about self-defense, we're not talking about offense, we're talking about defense, how do you stay safe? So, if I square off with you.

• 1:20:12Jocko Willink?

  And I wanna fight and punch you. Run away. I I I'm not holding on to you.

• 1:20:19Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:20:19Jocko Willink?

  I run away. If there's me and three of my friends.

• 1:20:25Jocko Willink?

  Run away. If I have a knife. And I'm gonna try and stab you. Run away.

• 1:20:37Jocko Willink?

  So all these kind of attacks. They're a disconnected attack. I'm not holding on to you. So run away from me. Get out of there. Run into a public place. Run to where there's other people that can help you.

• 1:20:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:52Jocko Willink?

  Run.

• 1:20:54Jocko Willink?

  Where this changes.

• 1:20:58Jocko Willink?

  Is when somebody grabs a hold of you.

• 1:21:00Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:21:01Jocko Willink?

  When somebody grabs a hold of you, you can no longer run away. And you have to be able to make them ungrab you. Let go of you.

• 1:21:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:15Jocko Willink?

  And how do you do that? You do that by knowing how to grapple. And grappling is jujitsu. So. That is why the first thing you should learn. Is jujitsu. Because if someone's not grabbing a hold of you, run away from them. If someone's trying to square off and and.

• 1:21:39Jocko Willink?

  Go toe to toe with you, run away from them. If there's five guys that wanna fight you, run away from them. If someone pulls out a knife on you, run.

• 1:21:49Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:21:50Jocko Willink?

  But here's the deal. If that person knocks you down and gets on top of you, you can't run anymore. So what do you have to do? You have to grapple them and you have to know jujitsu to to get them up and off of you and get away from them or submit them and put them to sleep or break their arm.

• 1:22:08Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:22:09Jocko Willink?

  That is why you should start with jujitsu.

• 1:22:14Jocko Willink?

  Pretty straightforward.

• 1:22:15Speaker 01

  Agreed.

• 1:22:16Jocko Willink?

  Once you know jujitsu, absolutely. Learn Muay Thai, learn wrestling, learn boxing, learn Krav Maga. Learn a screamin'. Learn everything you can about fighting. Do it, of course. But set your base with the one that you're gonna need if somebody grabs you. And that's jujitsu.

• 1:22:42Jocko Willink?

  The other thing about jujitsu is it's pretty easy to add in

• 1:22:48Jocko Willink?

  some of these other more animalistic self-defense situations. So if somebody grabs you and pulls you to the ground and you want to get away from them, yeah, you can, you need to know your body positions, but it's pretty easy to decide you're gonna bite their ear off. Or take a big chunk out of their face with your teeth, or jam your fingers into their eyes. It's not hard to augment that stuff.

• 1:23:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:13Jocko Willink?

  So these are all things that you can do within jujitsu that jujitsu does not hamper that ability to be savage in your attacks on people.

• 1:23:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that's interesting you bring up because

• 1:23:28Speaker 01

  everyone's heard the guy where he'll be like, hey, what's that jujitsu, whatever. And then, I don't know, you show them or you explain it and they'll be like, oh, wolf. I'll just, I just gouge your eyes out right here. Or I just, you know, I don't know. Strike your throat or something like this, right? So take the eye gouging option. You don't have to be trained to eye gouge. So we both will eye gouge each other. Like if we're gonna go eye gouging.

• 1:23:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I've had people trying to gouge me before. It's not gonna stop me. It hasn't stopped me.

• 1:24:01Speaker 01

  That's the second point. Sarah's brother, we was out for like Metamorphosis, we're talking and he, he basically did that. He was asking questions. He'd be like, no, I won't learn. I don't have to learn jujitsu. I would just do this. And he'd like, he's like, I know like pressure points that subdue people.

• 1:24:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, okay.

• 1:24:17Speaker 01

  So I said, okay.

• 1:24:18Jocko Willink?

  Him and Darth Vader.

• 1:24:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. So I was like, okay, well, what's the pressure point though? So I was like, okay, do the pressure point on me. I won't even like fight you back. And he did the one like here by the neck. And I was like, not only does that not hurt right now, I mean, I can see it hurts more than if you did it here, but not only does that not really hurt that much right now. If we're in any kind of fight situation, I don't even think I would even notice that. So he was like, oh, yeah, yeah. Well, let me get this one. And he did one like behind me here and then one on my ribs. Same exact thing. It's, yeah, it's more sensitive for sure.

• 1:24:51Jocko Willink?

  But it's not gonna stop that, buddy.

• 1:24:53Speaker 01

  Man, yeah, it's, it simply does not work.

• 1:24:59Speaker 01

  But the jujitsu, if you know jujitsu, you can still do all those things if you wanna do it, but you don't even have to.

• 1:25:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, cuz you're gonna put him to sleep.

• 1:25:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I would say even, in my opinion, more accurately, jujitsu will help you or it'll give you the ability to control the fight.

• 1:25:16Jocko Willink?

  Oh, for sure.

• 1:25:17Speaker 01

  So you can, like if you, jujitsu, you're not gonna learn how to throw like a sick left hook or nothing like that. You're not gonna learn that. Um, but you'll control the fight where if you wanna punch someone, you'll be in the perfect position to punch him. No matter how much punching training you have, you can have no punching training. You can just, I don't know, just throw your fist at him in whatever capacity. It'll be way more effective when you know jujitsu. And that goes for any other one of these moves that people say they'll do if you do jujitsu on them.

• 1:25:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:47Speaker 01

  You're the one gonna control the fight.

• 1:25:48Jocko Willink?

  I've tried all, all those people have come to me and I've gone through them all. It's no factor. The pressure points, the this, the that. Doesn't work. Sorry. Sorry to tell you.

• 1:25:58Speaker 01

  It might work, like, you know, the wrist ones, if you sit there.

• 1:26:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:04Speaker 01

  Let them do it and be like, okay, yeah, that hurts.

• 1:26:06Jocko Willink?

  And also going against someone that's completely untrained, you can have some sort of success with some of this stuff.

• 1:26:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:26:14Jocko Willink?

  But not against a determined attacker.

• 1:26:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that's, that was kind of the point where it's a, yeah, I'd say, yeah, it might work if you let them do it, but that's the thing. You don't let them do it. So re- ultimately, it.

• 1:26:28Jocko Willink?

  Learn jujitsu.

• 1:26:28Speaker 01

  The likelihood of that working is very, very low, just in the spirit of fairness.

• 1:26:32Jocko Willink?

  And jujitsu's fun.

• 1:26:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:34Jocko Willink?

  It's creative.

• 1:26:35Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:26:35Jocko Willink?

  It's a good workout. It ups your confidence. It gets you used to combative situations where you're going a hundred percent.

• 1:26:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:42Jocko Willink?

  It gets you used to having someone grind on you and try and smash you.

• 1:26:45Speaker 01

  And that's a big deal that I didn't even think about, where just having someone in, in girls especially, or just people who aren't used to confrontation. Man, when you get in a fight.

• 1:26:55Jocko Willink?

  It inoculates you to the terror of having somebody.

• 1:26:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, just all up.

• 1:27:00Jocko Willink?

  Grinding up on you and trying to smash you.

• 1:27:03Speaker 01

  In, I wanna say it was UFC. Four.

• 1:27:07Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:27:07Speaker 01

  Which one was the one with Art Jimmerson with the one glove? Was that?

• 1:27:10Jocko Willink?

  No, that was one.

• 1:27:11Speaker 01

  That was one, okay. So he got mounted and tapped.

• 1:27:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:16Speaker 01

  And man, that's a perfect example. He didn't get punched, you know, he didn't tap from any kind of punch or submission. He got mounted and then in an interview later, I saw he said, man, I was just feeling claustrophobic up over there. And if you watch it, he wasn't mounted for very long.

• 1:27:30Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 1:27:31Speaker 01

  He was just, man, he just wasn't used to that. And in, imagine if that was a real life fight. Someone attacks you and they're like mounted on you and you don't know, man, you can't tap, man, you're not gonna be able to handle that. Right? You know, jujitsu, you get mounted, that's.

• 1:27:44Jocko Willink?

  No factor.

• 1:27:45Speaker 01

  Some people, they know mountain escape so good where they hope they get mounted so they can get on top, you know? And then so you compare those two sides of the spectrum, jujitsu. Know the jujitsu.

• 1:27:56Jocko Willink?

  Know the jujitsu.

• 1:27:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:59Jocko Willink?

  Next.

• 1:28:01Speaker 01

  Next question. Can you expand on how to appropriately, effectively and tactfully lead up the chain of command? In a profession that's considered to be very paramilitary.

• 1:28:15Speaker 01

  My line of work sometimes works against us, limiting, limiting ideas and ways of doing things.

• 1:28:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and they're talking about the tradition in their line of work.

• 1:28:23Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:28:24Jocko Willink?

  Uh, okay, so what do you do? You got a organization you're working in and you've, how do you lead up the chain of command?

• 1:28:37Jocko Willink?

  Well.

• 1:28:39Jocko Willink?

  E- even in a paramilitary organization, which, you know, infers that this is a very hierarchical structure and it's chain of command driven. And how do you possibly get your boss to do what you want them to do?

• 1:28:53Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:28:54Jocko Willink?

  Well, it's actually fairly simple, fairly simple, not easy, but simple. It is, it is hard to do. It does take a lot more. It does take a lot of tactics, a lot of patience. So number one, you gotta build trust. You gotta build trust with your, the people that are above you in the chain of command. You gotta build a relationship, you gotta be proactive, you gotta stay ahead. You know, when I joined the military, I, you know, one day I just told my dad, hey, by the way, I joined, I enlisted in the Navy, I'll be, I'll be gone in three weeks or whatever. My dad just looked at me and shook his head and he says, you're gonna hate the military because you hate authority. You don't listen to anybody.

• 1:29:34Jocko Willink?

  And I was kind of a young stupid kid and I'm like, whatever, I'm going in the SEAL Teams, it's a team. We don't have to listen to anybody. Of course, I was completely wrong and you do listen to people and you do have a chain of command. But he was right in the fact that I didn't like to listen to people and I didn't like authority. So how did I get ahead of that? It was pretty easy. What I did to get ahead of that was I got ahead of it. And that's what you need to do here. You have to start that, start that attitude of where you're doing what needs to be done before you get told to do it. So you start to appear

• 1:30:14Jocko Willink?

  to have more knowledge and good foresight of what's gonna happen. Now you gotta be careful that you're not showing up the boss. You can't be flaunting in their face and I already did that, you know, because I'm so much better than you. That's not the goal here. The goal is to build confidence, not to build animosity. You don't want to build animosity, you want to build trust, you want to build confidence. You want to make that person start to realize how good you are. Again, be careful not to throw it in their face. Now, the tradition piece. And, and sometimes people do cling on to the traditions. And they use the traditions to shut down evolution.

• 1:30:58Jocko Willink?

  And that's bad because what they're really doing is they're protecting their world, they're protecting their

• 1:31:07Jocko Willink?

  Existence. And so that's a, that's a big wall. That's a big, hard wall to get through. Now, most people do have traditions and traditions. What are traditions built on? Do we build traditions? Are there traditions of failure and we're proud of that? Are there traditions of losing or no, no? The traditions are proud traditions. They're traditions of winning. They're traditions of excellence. And in some way. Traditions of excellence and traditions of winning and traditions of domination. Have to be tied in some way. To evolving and to adapting and to getting better. Because that's how we win.

• 1:31:52Jocko Willink?

  That's how we dominate. So you have to find that hole in the tradition. That part of the tradition. That implies. That what we do in our tradition is we get better. That's all it is. You just gotta find that thing that says we get better. We win. And you take that and you carry that, that lead, that little crack in the armor of tradition. And you turn that into, you know, yeah, we have a proud tradition because we're the best. And if you're gonna be the best, does the best stagnate? No, the best evolves. And again, you gotta be careful. You can't throw this in their face. You gotta say, hey, you know what? Our tradition is that we're the best. We make things happen and we get things done. And we always do it better than everyone else.

• 1:32:38Jocko Willink?

  So you know what? Here's one way we could do it better. If we did this, you gotta look for those little cracks. In the tradition. To bring forward change. Now, again, the most important this thing though is you've gotta continue to build that relationship with your superiors. You're constantly trying to build that. And I've said this before and I'll say it again. No matter who I ever worked for, I had the same relationship with the crazy boss, with the knucklehead boss, with the loser, with the great guy. Had the same relationship all the time and that was they trusted me. Didn't matter who I worked for. So you gotta build that relationship of trust.

• 1:33:15Jocko Willink?

  You've also gotta be careful that as you're trying to be proactive and as you're trying to get things done, that you're not looking to do it for your own ego to get credit. Because that disturbs the people at the top. And it makes them say, oh, he's just trying to shine. He's just trying to look good. Screw him. Throw his ideas out. That's what you gotta watch out for. So that's your ego. Don't make your ego fight their ego because they've got an ego too. You wanna let your ego go. Build that relationship.

• 1:33:49Jocko Willink?

  Make the change slow. It's gonna be slow, steady, and it's gonna take persistence in the long war. You gotta have patience. Tradition doesn't break down overnight. Tradition takes time to morph. So you gotta be ready for that long war and don't get frustrated. You're a part of a winning team. You're part of a team that has a proud tradition. You just gotta add to that tradition and that's gonna take time.

• 1:34:19Jocko Willink?

  That's how you do it.

• 1:34:23Speaker 01

  Next question. Hi guys. How about on a podcast, you talk about what is the essential equipment for a home gym?

• 1:34:36Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so for me, first of all, if you have nothing, if you're building from zero, the first thing you need is pull-up bars, a pull-up bar and a dip bar. Somewhere to do dips and somewhere to do pull-ups. And that's what you need. Now, be careful if you're listening and you're like, okay, I'm gonna go buy a pull-up bar and a dip bar. Don't get the little flimsy looking things that cost $129. You don't want that. It's almost worthless. It's better than nothing, but it's almost worthless. You wanna get a legit dip bar and a legit pull-up bar. Dip bars are a little bit easier. You can go, you can go pretty cheesy on dip bars,

• 1:35:19Jocko Willink?

  but pull-up bars, you can't. Pull-up bars, you need something legit, strong. You can bolt it to your wall, but you need a nice pull-up bar with a, with a... Inch and a half or a two inch metal pipe. I still have a pull up bar that I bought from Home Depot. Uh, I bought it in nineteen ninety-eight.

• 1:35:39Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:35:39Jocko Willink?

  I've had it ever since and it's bolted on to my squat rack.

• 1:35:44Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:35:45Jocko Willink?

  But that's all it is, a piece of, you know, two inch pipe and that's what you do pull ups on.

• 1:35:50Speaker 01

  So when you say, make sure it's legit, why is that? So you don't, so it doesn't break while you're using it? Basically?

• 1:35:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and also it's gotta have some weight to it so you can do kipping, pull ups, so you're not, the thing's not shaking all over the place. You get, you see these, I mean, this is just going total cheese ball, the things with like the foam handles that just rotate and fall off and they're just, it's just a nightmare. You wanna, what you need is a pipe. That's what you need, is a piece of pipe from Home Depot.

• 1:36:19Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:36:19Jocko Willink?

  Uh, and, and then you need somewhere to do dips. Now, one thing that you can do that will cover both these is you can get rings.

• 1:36:28Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:36:29Jocko Willink?

  You know gymnastics rings.

• 1:36:30Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 1:36:30Jocko Willink?

  And you can have, you can adjust the height of the rings and you can do dips and pull ups on rings and then you can do muscle ups as well. So rings are almost so, like, if there's one thing you could have, if you could have one piece of equipment for working out, it'd probably be smart to go with just wooden rings. Uh, because that, they are that flexible and you can do that much different stuff. I mean, you can do dips, you can do muscle ups, you can do pull ups, you can do push ups. You do all kinds of stuff. You can do levers, you can do front levers, back levers, there's all kinds of gymnastics moves you can do. I mean, you could basically work for the rest of your life on rings and be good to go. So rings are a way of handling the whole pull up and dip bar situation.

• 1:37:14Jocko Willink?

  But, and that's why it's pretty much the number two thing for me is, is.

• 1:37:21Jocko Willink?

  Pull up bar, dip bar slash rings because those are all gonna kinda get you those basic body movements to build your strength. Uh, once you get past that, now it's time for a squat rack. It's gotta have a squat rack and as soon as you have a squat rack now, my squat rack has a pull up bar on it. Which I bolted on myself. My squat rack is the same year of when I bought my first house. Immediately had a garage gym. It was twenty, I don't know, twenty seven years ago or something like that. Built a garage gym immediately. Bought a squat rack, still have the same squat rack, bolted a pull up bar onto it, still have that.

• 1:38:02Jocko Willink?

  I modified it a little bit and made dip bar, so I had a dip bar on it. This is before you could buy gymnastic rings, or I didn't know how to get a hold of gymnastics rings. Back in those days and then the next thing that you need is you need. Um, an Olympic lifting bar and, and bumper plates. And so you can do your squats, your cleans, your clean and jerks, your deadlifts. And all your basic strength movements.

• 1:38:33Jocko Willink?

  Um, after that for me, I think kettlebells. Um, you know, so now you have, you can do your swings. You can do your farmer's walks, you can do your snatches, you can, I mean, there's a. Ton of exercises, Turkish get ups. I mean, there's a ton of exercises that you can do there that kettlebells now add to the situation. And you can do some really psychotic conditioning, metabolic conditioning with the addition of kettlebells as well.

• 1:39:07Jocko Willink?

  At this point, if you only have one set of rings, I have three sets of rings and I have one that's high for muscle ups. I have one that's medium for dips and I have one that's low for, for pushups. And I just have those all the time so that you don't have to adjust them because I guess I'm too lazy to want to adjust my rings all the time.

• 1:39:23Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:39:24Jocko Willink?

  The next piece for me is.

• 1:39:30Jocko Willink?

  I like rowers, the concept two rowers. I have one. I've had it for a long time. They're brutal workout. I think that you can just destroy yourself very easily and very quickly. And I think like a, like an air dine or an aerosol type bike. I don't have one of those. I'm probably gonna get one very soon. But I think those are outstanding as well.

• 1:39:53Jocko Willink?

  I didn't say jump rope earlier. That's another good kinda cardio kinda metcon kinda get after it. And then maybe some medicine balls.

• 1:40:04Jocko Willink?

  And after that, I mean, I think, you know, the, the question was essential equipment. To me, that's sort of my list.

• 1:40:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:11Jocko Willink?

  And then from there, it just becomes fun. You know, it becomes what kind of other implements can I bring into the situation that are gonna eliminate boredom, increase creativity, increase dynamic and functional movement. And I think these, these are pretty good. And this is all stuff that's pretty common nowadays. There's a bunch of different places to get it and make it happen.

• 1:40:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, especially, especially when you kinda start with kinda one thing and you slowly just add on.

• 1:40:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:41Speaker 01

  And essential, that's kind of a complex question anyway to begin with. And you did say for you. Right. So it really, it depends on what kinda gym you're doing, like what kinda results you want, you know?

• 1:40:53Jocko Willink?

  Well, everyone that's listening to this podcast wants to just peak physical conditioning in a broad array of, of environments and tasks.

• 1:41:05Speaker 01

  Right. I would assume that as well. But it's not necessarily a fact. So like, I'm just saying if they have different goals, it's gonna look different.

• 1:41:16Jocko Willink?

  Name a goal that won't be covered by this. You can't do it.

• 1:41:20Speaker 01

  They wanna get their bench up.

• 1:41:21Jocko Willink?

  Okay, that's, that's one.

• 1:41:22Speaker 01

  You need a bench.

• 1:41:23Jocko Willink?

  If you want, if you wanna get your bench up, you need a bench.

• 1:41:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, I think your list was pretty elaborate, cause so, just my opinion.

• 1:41:31Jocko Willink?

  Oh, cause you're gonna break it down, cause you're like a minimalist over here when it comes to working out?

• 1:41:36Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:41:37Jocko Willink?

  Let's hear it minimalist.

• 1:41:38Speaker 01

  Well, essential equipment, right? I, I would say the, man, it depends. So, yeah, okay.

• 1:41:45Jocko Willink?

  It doesn't depend.

• 1:41:47Speaker 01

  Yes, it depends on what you, what results you want. So if you just wanna be a, a bodybuilder with, with big muscles.

• 1:41:54Jocko Willink?

  Go to listen to a different podcast.

• 1:41:57Speaker 01

  That's not the question.

• 1:41:59Jocko Willink?

  The people that are asking these questions are listening to this podcast, they're into physical fitness, they wanna be healthy, they wanna be jiu-jitsu players, they wanna be fighters, they wanna be able to functionally move well, they wanna stay healthy, they're not just getting their bodybuilder on.

• 1:42:15Speaker 01

  Okay, that still is an assumption though, but.

• 1:42:18Jocko Willink?

  It's a correct assumption.

• 1:42:19Speaker 01

  For the sake of efficiency, I'm gonna go ahead and, and, and.

• 1:42:23Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna let you, I'll tell you what.

• 1:42:24Speaker 01

  Make that assumption as well.

• 1:42:25Jocko Willink?

  One minute to complete the list.

• 1:42:29Speaker 01

  It's not about completing the list, I was gonna elaborate a little bit more, but.

• 1:42:33Jocko Willink?

  Do.

• 1:42:33Speaker 01

  No, I think that, no, I, I actually, I agree with you.

• 1:42:37Jocko Willink?

  You don't have any elaboration? There, there's one more thing, you probably added a bench on there.

• 1:42:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:41Jocko Willink?

  Is that what you'd add on? Anything else?

• 1:42:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, or, or, anything that would, that would, yeah, that would facilitate, the same thing a bench would facilitate.

• 1:42:51Jocko Willink?

  Other than that, it's pretty, uh, pretty good list, I think.

• 1:42:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that's, uh, uh, yeah, that's a big time list, but I, I think that's the deluxe list though, man. I think you could cut a few of those off and still get good results.

• 1:43:02Jocko Willink?

  It's a, it's an escalation though.

• 1:43:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:04Jocko Willink?

  If someone's listening right now, they're like, you know what, I'm gonna go get in shape, first thing you do is get a set of rings that you can do pull-ups, and that's number one.

• 1:43:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, gotcha.

• 1:43:12Jocko Willink?

  Then you can get a squat rack, then you, the squat rack's gonna come with a pull-up bar and a dip bar somehow, so you're good there. Then you, then you gotta get the bar and bumper plates, right? Which you can escalate, you can start with a, you can start with just a bar, and, you know, two twenty-five pound bumper plates, and then every month buy another forty-five pounds or a hundred pounds or whatever, and you're good.

• 1:43:35Speaker 01

  After you see those gains.

• 1:43:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you start jacking the big steel.

• 1:43:39Speaker 01

  Here's the thing though, about, um, home gyms, is if you work out at home, especially this, these kinds of workouts. You get more of a testosterone boost if you work out at a, at a public gym. Like at a twenty four fitness or CrossFit gym or something.

• 1:43:55Jocko Willink?

  Which one gives you more?

• 1:43:57Speaker 01

  If you work out, well, basically if you work out in front of people, if there's other people around, you, you get a testosterone boost.

• 1:44:04Jocko Willink?

  How come?

• 1:44:04Speaker 01

  More so than you would, it's, it's this thing, um, where, I don't know, it's this weird, some guy did an experiment a long time ago where, um, I don't know how long ago, but he did an experiment where he found out all these little things that you can do in front of people that'll boost your testosterone. One was, um, like drive a car, like a certain kind of car. And if you do it in front of people,

• 1:44:26Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:44:26Speaker 01

  it boosts your testosterone. So if you, and not only do you get, get that, you get, um, psycho, mental priming as well. So when you walk in the gym, like the CrossFit gym,

• 1:44:37Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:44:37Speaker 01

  all the smells, the sounds and all that basically primes your mind and your physiology for a workout. So, so I'll tell you, at, at home, I mean, I'm, I'm sure you could do that. I don't think it would, it would replace the actually being there, just that part of it. I'm not saying home gyms are junk. I'm not saying that at all.

• 1:44:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, cause when I walk in my home gym.

• 1:44:56Speaker 01

  You're primed.

• 1:44:58Jocko Willink?

  I feel primed. I love it.

• 1:45:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, see, and, and that's part of it as well. So, um, the whole reason, the whole reason I set up a home gym was so I don't have to make that drive to the gym and, you know, get all, but that kind of works against you.

• 1:45:13Jocko Willink?

  It's interesting that you use that. Like I say, hey, I have a home gym.

• 1:45:19Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:45:19Jocko Willink?

  So I can just be alone in the, in the cavern of doom and just get after it. And no one will bother me and I can be alone in my pain, world of pain and proving myself.

• 1:45:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:30Jocko Willink?

  And you're, you did it cause you're too lazy to go to the gym.

• 1:45:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, to make that drive is just more of a pain. I can save some time.

• 1:45:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:37Speaker 01

  Right, which, which.

• 1:45:38Jocko Willink?

  It is an efficiency thing for sure.

• 1:45:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, but that efficiency thing can, depends on who you are. Yeah, it, it'll backfire. Like for example, I'll be like, hey, I, I don't have to. You feel like you don't have to get the most out of your workout because I could just come right back here. You know, in an hour when I quote unquote feel better or when I feel more like doing it. Or the TV is right there and look, hey, the whatever is on. But big time.

• 1:46:05Jocko Willink?

  It's a lack of discipline.

• 1:46:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, it can be. And if you're looking for helpers for that discipline, a home gym. It could go either way, man.

• 1:46:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's interesting because I, I personally, the, the. I'm able to work out sometimes only because I have a home gym.

• 1:46:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:22Jocko Willink?

  You know, in other words, if my time is in a day is. I'll get up super early and if I wouldn't be able to hit my own gym quickly in thirty minutes and get a workout in, I wouldn't be able to get. It would take me thirty minutes to get to gym and back.

• 1:46:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:46:36Jocko Willink?

  Well, I recommend if you make a home gym, you do it in a positive way to increase your discipline. That's what I recommend.

• 1:46:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, I like how, you know, your home gym is kind of separate.

• 1:46:47Jocko Willink?

  From my house?

• 1:46:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, like you have to kind of go to it.

• 1:46:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so I do get to escape.

• 1:46:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I feel like that, that's a big factor. Mine is like right outside next to the barbecue. You know, next to the little.

• 1:46:59Jocko Willink?

  You don't know whether you wanna.

• 1:47:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know if I'm cruising or lifting, you know?

• 1:47:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:03Speaker 01

  So, yeah, it depends.

• 1:47:05Jocko Willink?

  It's rough for a coach. Doesn't know if he's cruising or lifting.

• 1:47:09Speaker 01

  Next question.

• 1:47:13Speaker 01

  Okay, podcast question. Uh, how does it feel to do Tim Ferriss podcast, Joe Rogan podcast and get thousands of followers listening to your podcast? Uh, reading your book, et cetera. Do you worry that some of your fans place you on a pedestal? And engage in hero worship?

• 1:47:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so this is a question that I was actually not gonna do because I was a little bit uncomfortable with it. And then I was like, okay, why are you uncomfortable with it? It's not that big of a deal. It, it, although I will say like, it does make me feel uncomfortable to think of people. Thinking of me in a heroic way or whatever. Uh. That does feel. Strange to me. Uh, as far as being on Rogan and Ferris and, and Sam Harris and doing some of these podcasts. Uh. It's. You know, it was, it was really cool. It's definitely, uh.

• 1:48:11Jocko Willink?

  You know, meeting people all the time as I travel and meeting people that have read, read our book and, and have gotten a lot out of it, you know, and that, that feels very rewarding, you know, it feels very rewarding. It feels great when someone says, hey, you know, I use this chapter or hey, your book. I mean, people are saying that, okay, your book changed my life and I take that with a grain of salt, but it feels, it feels good. It feels positive, you know, it feels, I like that, you know, I want to help people. And so that feels good, but as far as, it's not that, like, like my social media presence, which I had zero before and now I have it.

• 1:48:50Jocko Willink?

  And it's, it, it, it's not really that big of a deal because it's just me. I'm, I'm, I'm still just me and there's no, there's nothing, um, that's different or has changed. And when we talk about doing this podcast, we don't talk about how we should act or how I should act to get more people to listen to it. I'm only doing what I'm doing because this is me.

• 1:49:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:29Jocko Willink?

  And I'm not going to be different in order to achieve anything else. I'm only going to be who I am. And that's why the thought of people putting me on a pedestal or whatever, that's,

• 1:49:49Jocko Willink?

  it, it, I know that I'm just a person and, and I think that it might be how,

• 1:49:57Jocko Willink?

  how I get presented, you know, by the media, how I get presented. Even on this podcast, when I'm on this podcast, talking to you, we're talking about specific subjects that we are interested in and it's not, you know, I could see where someone might think, oh, you know,

• 1:50:18Jocko Willink?

  Jocko's this super, you know, superhuman and, and no, I know I'm not. So if I come across like that, it's only because you're seeing a sliver of me that appears that way.

• 1:50:29Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:50:29Jocko Willink?

  You know, I'm not saying I'm, I know I'm not totally normal as well. I mean, I know I'm not a normal person. I know I'm a little bit to the, to the edge of, you know, being a little bit.

• 1:50:40Speaker 01

  Extreme?

• 1:50:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, a little bit extreme ish, ish in some ways. And I know a lot of that just has to do with my habits as a person. Uh, but the, the fact of the matter is that no matter what happens and no matter what I come across and, and no matter what people might perceive me as, I don't perceive myself as

• 1:51:10Jocko Willink?

  special or as a hero for sure. Because and, and one thing that will not that will always stay with me is that

• 1:51:26Jocko Willink?

  I've been in combat and I've been humbled by combat. And I think that I've been on the battlefield and I've been confused and I've been outmaneuvered and I've had my guys killed.

• 1:51:40Jocko Willink?

  And so

• 1:51:43Jocko Willink?

  I know what a real hero is and it ain't me.

• 1:51:49Jocko Willink?

  And that's always gonna keep me grounded and I will never forget that.

• 1:52:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you, um, as far as being worried about people putting you on a pedestal, like how you're saying, you just, you be you, you, and that's all you're gonna do is be you. You're not trying to live up to anyone's expectation. That's, that was never a goal of yours.

• 1:52:16Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 1:52:17Speaker 01

  So if someone has an expectation, since that's not your goal, how can you worry about it? You're gonna continue to be you and it is, I think, I don't know if it's irony, but the more you do that and just be just authentic or whatever, it seems to draw more people to you.

• 1:52:35Jocko Willink?

  I I guess, but I don't know because I'm not acting any other way than I acted a year ago. Or you know, four years ago, I'm just, you know what I do? I train jujitsu. I work out. I wake up early in the morning. I try and get smarter. I uh try and do better.

• 1:52:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:53Jocko Willink?

  You know, that's what I do.

• 1:52:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:55Jocko Willink?

  Uh, so, so, yeah, I I'm just gonna, you know, I'm me. And I I actually, I'll tell you, this is interesting, is that

• 1:53:07Jocko Willink?

  people that I interact with now, I I I enjoy it and I get something out of it. I'm taking away, they're giving me as much inspiration as I'm giving them.

• 1:53:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:53:18Jocko Willink?

  You know, there's one girl on the, on the, on Twitter. And I don't wanna say her name, cuz I'm, I mean, it's a, I don't know how, I don't, I don't like to disrupt people's privacy. I mean, she's on Twitter, but she's a, a clearly a little bit of an older lady. She's um, she's a cancer survivor. I mean, when I say older, I mean, she's in her, at least in her sixties. And and she put a picture on the internet the other day on Twitter of her at the gym and she's got, you know, like a kettlebell, um, a medicine ball and an oxygen tank.

• 1:54:01Speaker 01

  In the game.

• 1:54:01Jocko Willink?

  Cuz she's, cuz she's in there working out.

• 1:54:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:54:04Jocko Willink?

  And she's, yeah, I gotta bring my oxygen tank because of, you know, I I don't know, know specifically why, but hey, man, if she can bring an oxygen tank to the gym and get after it at, you know, age sixty-five or seventy, you know, that's inspiring and and I can get up and get after it and do my piece. Just, you know, just at least just as well as as she could. And and so I think that that's, I think that's what's what's been interesting about this is seeing other people that are fired up. And and you know, that's, that's another thing that kinda happened early on in this journey for me.

• 1:54:48Jocko Willink?

  I have not a bunch of friends, but one of my friends, who's a SEAL.

• 1:54:57Jocko Willink?

  When I was just about, I think I had recorded the Tim Ferriss podcast. And

• 1:55:06Jocko Willink?

  I I knew it was gonna be released. And I knew it was gonna be heard by by people. And when when I did, when I got back, I I texted my friend. And I said, hey, uh.

• 1:55:21Jocko Willink?

  I did this podcast and it's gonna be released. And I'm gonna be one of them. And what I meant by that was one of these guys that sold out, for lack of a better word. And I'm out there, you know, oh, I'm a Navy SEAL and I'm the biggest, baddest guy, cuz there's plenty of those guys out there. And now I'm gonna be one of those guys. And so I said, I said, I'm gonna be one of them now. Sorry.

• 1:55:50Jocko Willink?

  And he wrote me back. And he said,

• 1:55:57Jocko Willink?

  that's awesome. And we got so many guys running around saying all kinds of stuff. You should be out there representing. You should be. And he went on to say something even more powerful. And he said,

• 1:56:15Jocko Willink?

  you know what? There's a lot of people in this world that need a role model, that need a dad. I needed a dad. I needed a father figure. And that's what you were for me. And for you to go out there and be out there in the world and be that role model for other people. It's awesome and you should do it. And I love the fact that you're doing it.

• 1:56:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:56:39Jocko Willink?

  And when he wrote that to me, it kinda changed my attitude.

• 1:56:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:56:42Jocko Willink?

  Because I did look at the role models that people look at. And I said to myself, and and again.

• 1:56:50Jocko Willink?

  I think part of what might make me a good role model is that I don't think I'm a good role model because I'm still trying to get better and I've done all kinds of stupid stuff. We need to have a dozen podcasts on the stupid things I've done in my life and, and talk about the mistakes I've made growing up and all the, just, I mean, I'm, that's another thing, like when you, when people see me on the podcast or they hear me on the podcast or they read the book, they're seeing the good part, right? They're seeing, I would hesitate to say, but they're seeing the best part of me. They're seeing a mature person. I'm not that mature, but they're seeing, they're seeing the older, the maturerest that I've ever been, which is right now. They're not seeing

• 1:57:30Jocko Willink?

  the idiot, you know, growing dummy that I was and that many of us were when we were younger. Yeah. Now, I might I have had a little edge, a little bit of advantage, maybe I was a little bit ahead in some cases, but man, I didn't, you know? Yeah. And so, that, when, when I got that text, that was a series of texts from, uh, from my brother, that really gave me a different attitude on this whole thing and it made me feel more

• 1:58:08Jocko Willink?

  comfortable with the fact that I was selling out and that I was now going to be out there in the public view. And, and all this being said, at some point, I'm probably going to go right back to the, to the cave that I came from. And I'm, I'm, I'm, I don't want,

• 1:58:32Jocko Willink?

  um, you know, I don't have what Patton had, which was just like this huge desire to be famous. I have no problem not being, I, I was unrecognizable to the world for my whole life. And the fact that I'm a little bit recognizable now, it doesn't make me feel great. It doesn't do anything for me. I'm just, just doing what I do. It's not my goal. But there, is there a goal to try and help some people out there? Yes. And I think hearing that from that buddy of mine made me solidify that goal a little bit. And again, not to try and say, hey, be like me. No, it's to say, Learn from what I learned from.

• 1:59:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:09Jocko Willink?

  I did some dumb stuff. I've been through some stuff that most people don't have to go through. So if you can take something away from it, awesome, you know, don't worship me by any stretch.

• 1:59:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:21Jocko Willink?

  But let's work together and see if we can get better as a team.

• 1:59:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you're a good. Like a some, a lot of your messages and the things that you say, a lot of it is new and then a lot of it's not new. Right? So and so this is one point where. And some of this stuff, people may have heard before, but someone like you who's done what you've done. And and think the way you think and do what you do right now, you're the perfect medium for that for that information to get passed on to someone, you know, like. You know, when you're a teenager or something, your dad tells you to do something, your mom tells you to do something, you're like, yeah, fuck that. But then when you go. And then you go to your friend's house and then like he tells you to do the exact same thing. You're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, you just.

• 2:00:06Speaker 01

  It takes that same message, but from someone who you can, for lack of a better way of putting it. Someone you can accept it from.

• 2:00:13Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:00:14Speaker 01

  And so all your messages are perfectly in line with who you are. So they're so like, you're so eager to accept them. You know, so like how you put, you know, online, you'll post a picture of your watch every morning and you're kind of the workout setting and stuff like that. Um. And you're kind of your message, um, more or less is. Get up every morning and get your work done, get a workout in, whatever. And then you're doing it and there's the proof right there.

• 2:00:40Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:00:41Speaker 01

  So if you're just some dude who's like, yeah, work out every day and you don't do it, then it's like, eh, it's gonna be harder harder to accept. So.

• 2:00:48Speaker 01

  People will get those messages and they'll they'll they'll internalize them way more readily from someone like you, given the messages that you're you're. You're um, you're sending. That's one. Two, the whole broadcasting yourself. Thing um, is is totally understandable for for someone like you and that that it's good that you kind of got your. Kind of got turned on to the notion that it's more you have really good messages and good content that will improve people in their life, whether it be older people, younger people, girls, guys, everything. And this is especially like a podcast situation, or even like certain online profiles and stuff, they're good ways to get that information out that people need,

• 2:01:31Speaker 01

  man. Like to improve themselves, like if you're in a neighborhood or in an environment with a bunch of people improving themselves, that's going to be a good neighborhood. And if they have the means to improve themselves, then that's a good service that you're putting out there. And to reach as many people as you do, you're essentially, you're helping the world with your message.

• 2:01:54Jocko Willink?

  Well, okay.

• 2:01:57Speaker 01

  I'm telling you. So I'm saying broadcasting yourself is a good thing.

• 2:02:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's, it definitely was a hard thing to, to

• 2:02:06Jocko Willink?

  overcome the, the, uh,

• 2:02:11Jocko Willink?

  the aversion

• 2:02:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:12Jocko Willink?

  to broadcasting yourself, which is something I, you know, that I talked about with Tim Ferriss, and I talked about it with Joe Rogan, is this idea of people that are talking.

• 2:02:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:23Jocko Willink?

  And, you know, you look at the extreme examples of social media, you know,

• 2:02:28Speaker 01

  Abusers.

• 2:02:29Jocko Willink?

  abusers and worthlessness.

• 2:02:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:32Jocko Willink?

  You know, and, and you just don't want to have anything to do with them.

• 2:02:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:36Jocko Willink?

  And when you're, when you're doing it, regardless of how much you don't want to have anything to do with them, you have something to do with them because you're doing it too. And it's very difficult for me not to feel like that. Now, obviously, I've gotten over it. I mean, I've gotten over it to a point where I'm saying, okay, these are kind of the acceptable parameters that I operate within for my personality, you know, which is, there's things that I haven't done and I won't do on social media.

• 2:03:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:03:06Jocko Willink?

  You know,

• 2:03:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:07Jocko Willink?

  because I'm not there to promote me.

• 2:03:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:11Jocko Willink?

  Um, but I'm there to

• 2:03:15Jocko Willink?

  Only open a door of observation, I would say, not to, not to knock on people's door and enter, but just to open the door of observation and say, this is how I try to live. And this is the steps that I take to try and live that way. Observe and, and if you wanna enter my house and hang out with me, come on in. As long as you're like minded and, and you have the same sort of goals, then come on in and, and you know what? You're gonna make me stronger.

• 2:03:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:49Jocko Willink?

  You're gonna bolster me up. You, you, I, so many people now, they're posting pictures of their watches on my Twitter. When I wake up, I'm looking at fifty to a hundred watches every day.

• 2:04:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, man.

• 2:04:02Jocko Willink?

  And I'm going, wow, that's a lot of people. And, and that is unity and that is leadership. And it does make me feel like, oh, okay, cool. There's other people in the world that are up and getting after it.

• 2:04:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:04:13Jocko Willink?

  At four twenty.

• 2:04:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, and there, there's a guy who's a teacher, posts good. He's a teacher, yeah, posted good on his classroom door. Yeah, on his classroom door. Man, and so now he's, yeah, I'm kind of pushing that, that, those good messages to the kids, you know?

• 2:04:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:33Speaker 01

  So, yeah, I mean, it's all, I think it's all positive. Social media, it is easy to get, to get that attitude towards it because of all the people who abuse it, quote unquote, um, but you know, like if you went, I don't know, like on the highway and, and all you saw was people speeding reckless driving, it still doesn't change the fact that you, you still wanna drive on the highway because you have something to do, you know? Um, your, your, your pursuit is different, but yeah, there's gonna be.

• 2:04:59Jocko Willink?

  The other weird thing is I have no idea where this is going. You know, and so like this podcast, I didn't, you know, we just kinda did it. I went on with Tim Ferriss and just kinda did it. I started Twitter, I had no idea what that was going to be.

• 2:05:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:05:15Jocko Willink?

  And so it's, it's fun for me to be adventuring into things that I don't know the outcome of. And this is one of them and Twitter is one of them. The book was one of them and you know, I don't know what's around the corner next and I don't know where this is going. But I will.

• 2:05:35Jocko Willink?

  Stay with the principles that I believe in.

• 2:05:37Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:05:39Jocko Willink?

  To the best of my ability. And I think that's what makes it an interesting ride.

• 2:05:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:05:44Jocko Willink?

  Where's that gonna go?

• 2:05:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:05:46Jocko Willink?

  We'll find out.

• 2:05:48Speaker 01

  Okay, last question. Jocko, what motivates you? I heard you mention the man in the cave. Can you go deeper on this?

• 2:05:58Jocko Willink?

  What motivates me?

• 2:06:04Jocko Willink?

  Well, I've talked about this before. And it's kind of what we were talking about a couple of minutes ago as well. And that is, first of all, with the man in the cave and this idea and this thought of the enemy.

• 2:06:24Jocko Willink?

  And, and that was a thought that used to drive me and kind of haunt me and make me get up early and work hard to push myself. Because I knew that somewhere out there, there was an enemy. A real enemy, a real man, a person, a human.

• 2:06:50Jocko Willink?

  That was waiting for me and that was preparing for me. And therefore, I needed to prepare for him. I needed to be ready. I needed to be the things I always talk about. I needed to be stronger and faster and smarter and better.

• 2:07:12Jocko Willink?

  So that when we did meet on the battlefield,

• 2:07:19Jocko Willink?

  I would be ready for that rendezvous, for that meeting, that fate.

• 2:07:27Jocko Willink?

  That battle.

• 2:07:30Jocko Willink?

  And that thought, that thought of the enemy, it, yes, it absolutely fueled me.

• 2:07:40Jocko Willink?

  And when I was a leader in the SEAL teams in charge of men,

• 2:07:46Jocko Willink?

  it was even more profound. Because I was thinking about that rendezvous.

• 2:07:54Jocko Willink?

  For everybody that I led, everyone I was in charge of, everyone that I trained.

• 2:08:01Jocko Willink?

  And I felt that burden. The burden of responsibility.

• 2:08:07Jocko Willink?

  To prepare those men and protect those, those men, those, those frogmen. Those warriors.

• 2:08:19Jocko Willink?

  My brothers.

• 2:08:25Jocko Willink?

  And it, it was my burden to train those guys and prepare them.

• 2:08:37Jocko Willink?

  And that burden, it may have made me a little bit crazy, a little bit paranoid, a little bit over the top.

• 2:08:50Jocko Willink?

  But I didn't really know any, any other way.

• 2:09:05Jocko Willink?

  And so now.

• 2:09:11Jocko Willink?

  I am no longer.

• 2:09:15Jocko Willink?

  A combat leader.

• 2:09:20Jocko Willink?

  I no longer prepare men for war.

• 2:09:26Jocko Willink?

  So the drive and the motivation.

• 2:09:33Jocko Willink?

  Is from a different place.

• 2:09:40Jocko Willink?

  It's from a solemn place.

• 2:09:46Jocko Willink?

  The drive now and the motivation now is not really from the enemy anymore.

• 2:09:58Jocko Willink?

  Now it's from my friends, my brothers.

• 2:10:05Jocko Willink?

  It's from those SEALs that I knew.

• 2:10:22Jocko Willink?

  And that I

• 2:10:29Jocko Willink?

  cared about more than anything.

• 2:10:35Jocko Willink?

  And that they sacrificed

• 2:10:42Jocko Willink?

  everything

• 2:10:47Jocko Willink?

  for us and for me.

• 2:10:50Jocko Willink?

  And those guys, they gave their lives for us.

• 2:11:05Jocko Willink?

  And now

• 2:11:08Jocko Willink?

  I cannot help but think and remember that every breath that we take is a

• 2:11:20Jocko Willink?

  it's a gift. It's a sacred gift from those men.

• 2:11:28Jocko Willink?

  Every day we have, every sunrise, every thought and every smile and every laugh, it's a gift.

• 2:11:44Jocko Willink?

  And I will treasure that gift, that gift of life.

• 2:11:54Jocko Willink?

  And I will not let it go to waste, not one second of it.

• 2:12:03Jocko Willink?

  And I'll cherish every moment of it and I will live it.

• 2:12:10Jocko Willink?

  I will live it

• 2:12:15Jocko Willink?

  in their memory.

• 2:12:21Jocko Willink?

  And in their honor.

• 2:12:38Jocko Willink?

  I think that's uh...

• 2:12:43Jocko Willink?

  It's about it for tonight.

• 2:12:49Jocko Willink?

  So...

• 2:12:51Jocko Willink?

  As always...

• 2:12:54Jocko Willink?

  Thank you for listening.

• 2:12:57Jocko Willink?

  Thanks for subscribing.

• 2:13:00Jocko Willink?

  Thanks for reviewing, thanks for supporting.

• 2:13:07Jocko Willink?

  And thanks for taking a moment...

• 2:13:11Jocko Willink?

  To remember... The brave men and women...

• 2:13:18Jocko Willink?

  That have fought and died for our freedoms.

• 2:13:23Jocko Willink?

  And in their memory...

• 2:13:27Jocko Willink?

  Make sure you get out there...

• 2:13:30Jocko Willink?

  And you get after it.

• 2:13:35Jocko Willink?

  Until next time...

• 2:13:39Jocko Willink?

  This is Echo and Jocko. Out.